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By Paul Craig Roberts

The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil. The various sects that lived in peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad are butchering one another, and a new group, ISIS, is in the process of creating a new state out of parts of Iraq and Syria.

The turmoil brought into the Middle East by the Bush and Obama regimes has meant death and displacement for millions and untold future deaths. As I write 40,000 Iraqis are stranded on a mountain top without water awaiting death at the hands of ISIS, a creation of US meddling.

The reality in the Middle East stands in vast contradiction to the stage managed landing of George W. Bush on the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. The mission that Washington accomplished was to wreck the Middle East and the lives of millions of people and to destroy America’s reputation in the process. Thanks to the demonic neoconservative Bush regime, today America is regarded by the rest of the world as the greatest threat to world peace.

The Clinton regime’s attack on Serbia set the pattern. Bush upped the ante with Washington’s naked aggression against Afghanistan, which Washington clothed in Orwellian language–”Operation Enduring Freedom.”

Washington brought ruin, not freedom, to Afghanistan. After 13 years of blowing up the country, Washington is now withdrawing, the “superpower” having been defeated by a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, but leaving a wasteland behind for which Washington will accept no responsibility.

Another source of endless Middle East turmoil is Israel whose theft of Palestine is Washington-enabled. In the middle of Israel’s latest attack on civilians in Gaza, the US Congress passed resolutions in support of Israel’s war crimes and voted hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for Israel’s ammunition. Here we witness Great Moral America 100 percent in support of unambiguous war crimes against essentially defenseless people.

When Israel murders women and children, Washington calls it “Israel’s right to defend their own country”–a country that Israel stole from Palestinians–but when Palestinians retaliate Washington calls it “terrorism.” By supporting Israel, declared to be a terrorist state by a few moral governments that still exist, and accused of war crimes by the UN General Secretary, Washington is in violation of its own laws against supporting terrorist states.

Of course, Washington itself is the leading terrorist state. Therefore, it is illegal under US law for Washington to support itself. Washington, however, does not accept law, neither domestic nor international, as a constraint on its actions. Washington is “exceptional, indispensable.” No one else counts. No law, no Constitution, and no humane consideration has authority to constrain Washington’s will. In its claims Washington surpasses those of the Third Reich.

As horrific as Washington’s recklessness toward the Middle East is, Washington’s recklessness toward Russia is many orders of magnitude greater. Washington has
convinced nuclear armed Russia that Washington is planning a nuclear first strike.
In response Russia is beefing up its nuclear forces and testing US air defense reactions. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russian-strategic-bombers-conduct-more-than-16-incursions-of-u-s-air-defense-zones/

It is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible act than to convince Russia that Washington intends to hit Russia with a preemptive first strike. One of Putin’s advisers has explained to the Russian media Washington’s first strike intentions, and a member of the Russian Duma has made a documented presentation of Washington’s first strike intentions. http://financearmageddon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/official-warning-u-s-to-hit-russia-with.html By marshaling the evidence, I have pointed out in my columns that it is impossible for Russia to avoid this conclusion.

China is aware that China faces the same threat from Washington. http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparations-for-war-with-china/ China’s response to Washington’s war plans against China was to demonstrate how China’s nuclear forces would be used in response to Washington’s attack on China to destroy the US. China made this public, hoping to create opposition among Americans to Washington’s war plans against China. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2484334/China-boasts-new-submarine-fleet-capable-launching-nuclear-warheads-cities-United-States.html Like Russia, China is a rising country that does not need war in order to succeed.

The only country on earth that needs war is Washington, and that is because Washington’s goal is the neoconservative one of exercising hegemony over the world.

Prior to the Bush and Obama regimes, every previous US president went to great efforts to avoid telegraphing any nuclear threat. US war doctrine was careful to keep nuclear weapons limited to retaliation in the event the US suffered a nuclear attack. The purpose of nuclear forces was to prevent the use of such weapons. The reckless George W. Bush regime elevated nuclear weapons to preemptive first use, thus destroying the constraint placed on the use of nuclear weapons.

The overriding purpose of the Reagan administration was to end the cold war and, thereby, the threat of nuclear war. The George W. Bush regime, together with the Obama regime’s demonization of Russia, have overturned President Reagan’s unique achievement and made nuclear war likely.

When the incompetent Obama regime decided to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine and install a puppet government of Washington’s choosing, the Obama State Department, run by neoconservative ideologues, forgot that the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine consist of former Russian provinces that were attached to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by Communist Party leaders when Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country–the Soviet Union. When the Russophobic stooges that Washington installed in Kiev demonstrated in word and deed their hostility to Ukraine’s Russian population, the former Russian provinces declared their desire to return to mother Russia. This is not surprising, nor is it something that can be blamed on Russia.

Crimea succeeded in returning to Russia, where Crimea resided since the 1700s, but Putin, hoping to defuse the propaganda war that Washington was mounting against him did not accept the pleas from the other former Russian provinces. Consequently, Washington’s stooges in Kiev felt free to attack the protesting provinces and have been following the Israeli policy of attacking civilian populations, civilian residences, and civilian infrastructure.

The presstitute Western media ignored the facts and accused Russia of invading and annexing parts of Ukraine. This lie is comparable to the lies that US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in behalf of the criminal Bush regime, lies that Colin Powell later apologized for to no avail as Iraq had been destroyed by his lies.

When the Malaysian airliner was destroyed, before any facts were known Russia was blamed. The British media was especially primed to blame Russia almost the instant it was known the airliner was downed. I heard the BBC’s gross misrepresentation and blatant lies on American National Public Radio, and only the Daily Mail’s propagandistic account was worse. The entire “news” event has the appearance of orchestration prior to the event, which, of course, suggests that Washington was behind it.

The airliner deaths became all important for Washington’s propaganda war. The 290 casualties are unfortunate, but they are a small fraction of the deaths that Israel was inflicting on Palestinians at the same moment without provoking any protests from Western governments, as distinct from Western peoples in the streets, people whose protests were conveniently suppressed for Israel by Western security forces.

Washington used the downing of the airliner, which probably was Washington’s responsibility, as an excuse for another round of sanctions and to pressure its European puppets to join the sanctions with sanctions of their own, which Washington’s EU puppets did.

Washington relies on accusations and insinuations and refuses to release the evidence from the satellite photos, because the photos do not support Washington’s lies. Facts are not permitted to interfere with Washington’s demonization of Russia any more than facts interfered with Washington’s demonization of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.

Twenty-two reckless and irresponsible US senators have introduced the “Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014,” US Senate bill 2277, sponsored by Senator Bob Corker, who well represents in his ignorance and stupidity what appears to be the majority of the American population or the majority of voters in the state of Tennessee. Corker’s bill is a mindless piece of legislation designed to start a war that would be likely to leave no survivors. Apparently, idiotic Americans will elect any fool to power.

The belief that Russia is responsible for the downed Malaysian airliner has become fact in Western capitals despite the total absence of even a tiny scrap of evidence in behalf of the claim. Moreover, even it the accusation were true, is one airliner worth a World War?

The UK Defense Committee has concluded that a broke and militarily impotent UK must “focus on the defense of Europe against Russia.” The military spending drums, if not the war drums, are beating and the entire West has joined in. A militarily impotent Britain is going to defend Europe from a non-existent, although much proclaimed, attack from the Russian bear.

US and NATO military dignitaries and the Pentagon chief are issuing Russia Threat Warnings based on alleged but non-existent Russian troop-buildups on Ukraine’s border. According to the the Western Ministry of Propaganda if Russia defends the Russian populations in Ukraine from military attack from Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, it is proof that Russia is the villain.

Washington’s propaganda campaign has succeeded in turning Russia into a threat. Polls show that 69 percent of Americans now regard Russia as a threat, and that the confidence of Russians in American leadership has vanished.

Russians and their government observe the identical demonization of their country and their leader as they observed of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, of Libya and Gaddafi, of Syria and Assad, and of Afghanistan and the Taliban just prior to military assaults on these countries by the West. For a Russian, the safest conclusion from the evidence is that Washington intends war on Russia.

It is my opinion that the irresponsibility and recklessness of the Obama regime is without precedent. Never before has the United States government or the government of any nuclear power gone to such great efforts to convince another nuclear power that that power was being set up for attack. It is difficult to imagine a more provocative act that more endangers life on earth. Indeed, the White House Fool has doubled up, convincing both Russia and China that Washington is planning a preemptive first strike on both.

Republicans want to sue or to impeach Obama over relatively inconsequential issues, such as ObamaCare. Why don’t Republicans want to impeach Obama over such a critical issue as subjecting the world to the risk of nuclear armageddon?

The answer is that the Republicans are as crazed as the Democrats. Their leaders, such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham, are determined that “we stand up to the Russians!” Wherever one looks in American politics one sees crazed people, psychopaths and sociopaths who should not be in political office.

Washington long ago gave up diplomacy. Washington relies on force and intimidation. The US government is utterly devoid of judgment. This is why polls show that the rest of the world regards the US government as the greatest threat to world peace. Today
(August 8, 2014) Handelsblatt, Germany’s Wall Street Journal, wrote in a signed editorial by the publisher:

“The American tendency to move from verbal escalation to military escalation–the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies–has not proven effective. The last successful major military action the US conducted was the Normandy landing [in 1944]. Everything else – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – was a clear failure. Moving NATO units towards the Polish border with Russia and thinking about arming Ukraine is a continuation of relying on military means in the absence of diplomacy.”

Washington’s puppet states–all of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia–enable Washington’s unrivaled danger to the world by their support of Washington’s agenda of exercising hegemony over the entire world.

The 100th anniversary of World War I is upon us. And the folly that caused this war is being repeated. WWI destroyed a civilized Western world, and it was the work of a mere handful of scheming people. The result was Lenin, the Soviet Union, Hitler, the rise of American Imperialism, Korea, Vietnam, the military interventions that created ISIS, and now resurrected conflict between Washington and Russia that President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had ended.

As Stephen Starr has pointed out on my website, if merely 10% of the nuclear weapons in the US and Russian arsenals are used, life on earth terminates.

Dear readers, ask yourselves, when has Washington told you anything that was not a lie? Washington’s lies have caused millions of casualties. Do you want to be a casualty of Washington’s lies?

Do you believe that Washington’s lies and propaganda about the Malaysian airliner and Ukraine are worth risking life on earth? Who is so gullible that he cannot recognize that Washington’s lies about Ukraine are like Washington’s lies about Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, and Assad’s use of chemical weapons?

Do you think that the neoconservative influence that prevails in Washington, regardless of the political party in office, is too dangerous to be tolerated?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Shamus Cooke

Suddenly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become a threat worthy of American missiles. For almost two years President Obama completely ignored the biggest and most brutal terror group in the Middle East, allowing it to balloon into a regional power. No matter how many heads it severed or how much territory it conquered, ISIS just couldn’t draw Obama’s attention.

As ISIS was conquering ever-expanding territories Obama was supposedly waging a “war on terror” around the globe, drone-bombing any would-be bogeyman in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc. But when a real bogeyman emerged, Obama ignored it, and so did the U.S. media, which instead followed Obama’s warmongering gaze to Ukraine, while plagiarizing the president’s endless excuse-making for Israel’s genocidal conduct in Gaza.

For well over two years ISIS and other al-Qaeda-style groups have been the main driving force in the Syrian war that has claimed over 170,000 lives, with millions made refugees. And now, suddenly, Obama wants to intervene for “humanitarian” reasons to fight ISIS. But the actual reason that ISIS attracted Obama’s missiles is that the terror group did something unforgivable: It has finally threatened “U.S. interests,” whereas before the interests of ISIS and Obama were perfectly aligned.

The indefatigable Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn was dumbfounded by the lack of government and media attention ISIS has gotten, as the group expanded its power over huge regions of Syria and Iraq, now threatening Lebanon. Cockburn exasperatedly writes:

“As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June…The birth of the new [ISIS] state is the most radical change to the political geography of the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was implemented in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet this explosive transformation has created surprisingly little alarm internationally…”

Similar surprise was displayed by Noah Bonsey, a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group, who couldn’t understand the free hand Obama was giving ISIS:

“The U.S. has the clout and capacity to build partnerships capable of reversing ISIS gains, but seems to lack the necessary vision and will.”

And finally from The New York Times:

“Even after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seized Fallujah and other territory in the western part of the country [Iraq] at the beginning of the year and marched through Mosul and toward Baghdad by summer, the president expressed no enthusiasm for American military action.”

Or any action for that matter.

While ignoring ISIS’ destruction of Syria and invasion of Iraq, U.S.-led NATO issued non-stop warnings about Russia possibly invading Ukraine. But of course there were no such warnings issued — or attention paid — to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

And whereas Obama didn’t lift a finger to stop the Israeli invasion, he recently stated that the U.S. has a “unique opportunity” to stop an ISIS massacre in Iraq; thousands of Gazans must be rolling in their freshly dug graves.

Obama’s inconsistent approach to foreign policy has confused many an analyst, who see no logic in the president’s approach to military intervention. Even Obama’s former deputy Secretary of State recently commented:

“Nobody has the sense about why [intervention] in some cases and not in others… His [Obama’s] last news conference just leaves you scratching your head. Yeah, we can’t do everything. But what matters to us?”

In reality, however, there is a definite logic to Obama’s foreign policy, where he has been disgracefully consistent throughout his presidency. For example, after Obama publicly targeted the Syrian government for destruction had had no qualms about using ISIS and the other al-Qaeda-linked groups as proxies in the fight.

These terror groups were encouraged to grow exponentially in their fight against al-Assad, with Obama knowing full well that Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allied Gulf States were sending mountains of money, guns, and fighters to the jihadists. There was simply was no one else effectively fighting al-Assad, a dynamic that has artificially lengthened a war that would have ended years ago, while creating the environment that ISIS thrived in. Much of the money and guns that Obama shipped to the “moderate” Islamists rebels of course found its way into the hands of the jihadists, since thousands of moderates have since joined ISIS.

The more that ISIS did for the U.S. in Syria, the less Obama gave it attention, a very powerful form of passive political support. When ISIS invaded Iraq from Syria, Obama barely batted an eyelash, making excuse after excuse about why the U.S. couldn’t send the Iraqi government military equipment to fight ISIS. Imagine, however, if Saudi Arabia or Israel were invaded by a terrorist organization? Obama would have green-lighted F-16 bombing raids in minutes.

Obama’s lack of concern for the ISIS invasion of Iraq was ideologically linked to his inaction in Syria: Obama wants regime change in both nations, and is using ISIS as a de facto ally in both cases. This became quickly obvious with Obama’s response to the ISIS invasion of Iraq; he simply criticized the Iraqi government for not being more inclusive; meanwhile ISIS butchered its way through giant regions of Iraq and subjected the survivors to a more brutal totalitarianism than the U.S.-allied dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.

Further political support was given to ISIS by U.S. politicians, who essentially accepted ISIS as the ruler of the newly conquered Iraqi territories; these politicians instantly referred to Iraq as being “de facto partitioned,” meaning that ISIS had created a separate Sunni region that would be complemented by Shia and Kurdish regions.

Coincidentally, this “partition” plan just happens to be the official plan of Vice President Joe Biden, who for a while has advocated a “soft partition” of Iraq, an idea as ludicrous as a “partial” nuclear attack. As long as ISIS was “de facto” helping achieve Biden’s partition plan, Obama was fine with ISIS’ murderous rampage. And now the media informs us, unsurprisingly, that Biden’s plan has officially been “gaining momentum” in Washington D.C.

But then ISIS went too far. The red line that ISIS finally crossed was their attack against the U.S. allied Iraqi Kurds. The Kurds govern their own oil-rich autonomous zone in Iraq, and have been steadfast U.S. supporters. The New York Times talks openly about the real, non-humanitarian motive of Obama attacking ISIS:

“Mr. Obama has been reluctant to order direct military action in Iraq [against ISIS] while [Iraqi] Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains in office, but in recent weeks there have been repeated pleas from the Kurdish officials for weapons and assistance as ISIS militants have swept across northwestern Iraq.”

The Times re-enforced this perspective when talking about the views of Representative Adam Smith of Washington State:

“…he [Smith] supported intervening on behalf of the Kurds, as opposed to the unpopular Baghdad government. “The Kurds are worth helping and defending” [said Smith].”

There you have it. The thousands who have been slaughtered by ISIS in Syria and other parts of Iraq weren’t “worth defending,” but the Kurds are different, since their leaders are U.S. allies. This sums up U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell, which has absolutely nothing to do with “humanitarianism.” Gazans are allowed to be slaughtered, Syrian’s massacred, and half of Iraq torn to shreds while Obama has busied himself with making threats to Russia.

The logical of U.S. military intervention is completely based on a cynical calculation meant to boost U.S. military and corporate power abroad, by any means necessary.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By John Scales Avery

Why the book is important

The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima was a tragedy in itself, but its larger significance is that it started a nuclear arms race which today threatens to destroy human society and much of the biosphere.

Sokka Gakki

Sokka Gakki is a large Nichirin Buddhist religious group. Its 12 million members are centered primarily in Japan, but Sokka Gokkai International (SGI) has groups in 192 countries. In Japanese, the words “Sokka Gakkai” mean “Value-Creating Education”. The organization was started by two Japanese educators, Tsunisaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, both of whom were imprisoned by their government during World War II because of their opposition to militarism. Makaguchi died as a result of his imprisonment, but Josei Toda went on to found a large and vigorous educational organization dedicated to culture, humanism, world peace and nuclear abolition.

The Toda Declaration and Daisaku Ikeda’s Proposals

In 1957, before a cheering audience of 50,000 young Sokka Gakkai members,Josei Toda declared nuclear weapons to be an absolute evil. He declared that their possession is criminal under all circumstances, and he called the young people present to work untiringly to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.

Toda was the mentor of Daisaku Ikeda, the first president SGI. Every year, President Ikeda issues a Peace Proposal, calling for international understanding and dialogue, as well as nuclear abolition, and outlining practical steps by which he believes these goals may be achieved. In his 2013 Peace Proposal, Ikeda, noted that 2015 will be the 70th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, and he proposed that the NPT review conference should take place in Hiroshima, rather that in New York. He proposed that this should be followed by “an expanded global summit for a nuclear-weapon-free world”

The Hiroshima Peace Committee and the last remaining hibakushas

In Japanese the survivors of injuries from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called “hibakusha”.Over the years, the Sokka Gakkai Hiroshima Peace Committee has .published many books containing their testimonies. The most recent of these books, “A Silence Broken”, contains the testimonies of 14 men, now all in their late 70’s or in their 80’s, who are among the last few remaining hibakushas. All 14 of these men have kept silent until now because of the prejudices against hibakusha in Japan, where they and their children are thought to be unsuitable as marriage partners because of the effects of radiation. But now, for various reasons, they have chosen to break their silence. Many have chosen to speak now because of the Fukushima disaster.

The testimonies of the hibakushas give a vivid picture of the hell-like horrors of the nuclear attack on the civilian population of Hiroshima, both in the short term and in the long term. For example, Shigeru Nonoyama, who was 15 at the time of the attack, says: “People crawling out from crumbled houses started to flee. We decided to escape to a safe place on the hill. We saw people with melted ears stuck to their cheeks, chins glued to their shoulders, heads facing in awkward positions, arms stuck to bodies, five fingers joined together and grab nothing. Those were the people fleeing. Not merely a hundred or two, The whole town was in chaos.

“I saw the noodle shop’s wife leg was caught under a fallen pole, and a fire was approaching. She was screaming, ‘Help me!Help me!’ There were no soldiers, no firefighters. I later heard that her husband had cut off his wife’s leg with a hatchet to save her.”

“Each and every scene was hell itself. I couldn’t tell the difference between the men and the women. Everybody had scorched hair, burned hair, and terrible burns. I thought I saw a doll floating in a fire cistern, but it was a baby. A wife trapped under her fallen house was crying, ‘Dear, please help me, help me!’ Her husband had no choice but to leave her in tears.”

“…I hovered between life and death for three months, from August to October. When a fly landed on a festering wound, it would bleed white maggots in a few days. My mother shooed away the flies through the night with a fan through the night. She must have been desperately determined not to lose any more sons or daughters. My dangling skin dried and turned hard, like paper. My mother picked off the dried skin. She made a cream of straw ash and cooking oil, and applied it to my burnt head, face and fingertips, turning me black…”

The testimonies of the other hibakushas are equally horrifying.

The postwar nuclear arms race

On August 29, 1949, the USSR exploded its first nuclear bomb. It had a yield equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT, and had been constructed from Pu-239 produced in a nuclear reactor. Meanwhile the United Kingdom had begun to build its own nuclear weapons.

The explosion of the Soviet nuclear bomb caused feelings of panic in the United States, and President Truman authorized an all-out effort to build superbombs using thermonuclear reactions – the reactions that heat the sun and stars. On October 31, 1952, the first US thermonuclear device was exploded at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. It had a yield of 10.4 megatons, that is to say it had an explosive power equivalent to 10,400,000 tons of TNT. Thus the first thermonuclear bomb was five hundred times as powerful as the bombs that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were not far behind.

In 1955 the Soviets exploded their first thermonuclear device, followed in 1957 b y the UK. In 1961 the USSR exploded a thermonuclear bomb with a yield of 58 megatons. A bomb of this size, two thousand times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, would destroy a city completely even if it missed it by 50 kilometers. France tested a fission bomb in 1966 and a thermonuclear bomb in 1968. In all about thirty nations contemplated building nuclear weapons, and many made active efforts to do so.

Because the concept of deterrence required an attacked nation to be able to retaliate massively even though many of its weapons might be destroyed by a preemptive strike, the production of nuclear warheads reached insane heights, driven by the collective paranoia of the Cold War. More than 50,000 nuclear warheads were produced worldwide, a large number of them thermonuclear. The collective explosive power of these warheads was equivalent to 20,000,000,000 tons of TNT, i.e., 4 tons for every man, woman and child on the planet, or, expressed differently, a million times the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Today, the collective explosive power of all the nuclear weapons in the world is about half that much, but still enough to destroy human society.

There are very many cases on record in which the world has come very close to a catastrophic nuclear war. One such case was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense at the time of the crisis, had this to say about how close the world came to a catastrophic nuclear war: “I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”

A number of prominent political and military figures (many of whom have ample knowledge of the system of deterrence, having been part of it) have expressed concern about the danger of accidental nuclear war. Colin S. Gray, Chairman, National Institute for Public Policy, expressed this concern as follows: “The problem, indeed the enduring problem, is that we are resting our future upon a nuclear deterrence system concerning which we cannot tolerate even a single malfunction”. Bruce G. Blair (Brookings Institute) has remarked that “It is obvious that the rushed nature of the process, from warning to decision to action, risks causing a catastrophic mistake”… “This system is an accident waiting to happen.”

As the number of nuclear weapon states grows larger, there is an increasing chance that a revolution will occur in one of them, putting nuclear weapons into the hands of terrorist groups or organized criminals. Today, for example, Pakistan’s less-than-stable government might be overthrown, and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons might end in the hands of terrorists. The weapons might then be used to destroy one of the world’s large coastal cities, having been brought into the port by one of numerous container ships that dock every day, a number far too large to monitored exhaustively. Such an event might trigger a large-scale nuclear conflagration.

Recent research has shown that a large-scale nuclear war would be an ecological catastrophe of enormous proportions, producing very large-scale famine through its impact on global agriculture, and making large areas of the world permanently uninhabitable through long-lived radioactive contamination.

How do these dangers look in the long-term perspective? Suppose that each year there is a certain finite chance of a nuclear catastrophe, let us say 1 percent. Then in a century the chance of a disaster will be 100 percent, and in two centuries, 200 percent, in three centuries, 300 percent, and so on. Over many centuries, the chance that a disaster will take place will become so large as to be a certainty. Thus by looking at the long-term future, we can see that if nuclear weapons are not entirely eliminated, civilization will not survive.

We will do well to remember Josei Toda’s words: “Nuclear weapons to be an absolute evil. Their possession is criminal under all circumstances”

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago.

09 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Shamus Cooke
Blasting Gaza into rubble has affected the average American in ways that U.S. politicians will learn to regret. The result will be more than simply bleeding hearts for dead Palestinian children (430 at last count). There is a deeper political effect happening, as young and old alike realize for the first time the cancerous lies coursing through the veins of the U.S. media and political system.

The U.S. government’s support of Israel—which includes Obama and all 100 senators— further exposes the gigantic clash between the unpopular foreign policy of the U.S. versus the wishes of its residents. The government will be further pushed by corporate interests to pursue these unpopular yet profitable overseas policies, which are teaching millions of people about the reality of their government, consequently undermining the future basis for an elite-driven foreign policy.

Merely glancing at the casualty statistics was enough for most Americans to know their T.V. was lying to them: 1900 Palestinians have died, 10,0000 have been injured— 80% of them civilians. Meanwhile, 3 Israeli citizens have died, zero injured. There is typically more damage from a Super Bowl victory party than Israel has suffered from Hamas’ fireworks.

Americans reacted in horror to Israel’s massively disproportionate violence— an obvious war crime as defined by the Geneva Convention. And even more obvious war crimes were committed: the high profile Israeli missile attacks on Gaza hospitals, schools and UN bomb shelters .

During this carnage American viewers were endlessly told by ‘experts’ that “Israel has a right to defend itself”, a completely meaningless phrase when entire Gaza neighborhoods were obliterated while the U.S. media searched in vain for ANY damage caused by the “terrifying” Hamas rockets.

Obama’s disgraceful acting job throughout the conflict showcased another big lie for American viewers: he pretended that the enormous American influence over Israel didn’t exist, as if the $3 billion plus in annual U.S. aid wasn’t “leverage” that Obama could have used to stop Israel’s blitzkrieg. The U.S. is literally the only strong ally of importance to Israel. And the world’s sole super-power— however fading—pretended to be impotent in order for Israel to continue the killing.

Worse still was when millions of Americans watched Obama blather about a ceasefire while simultaneously re-supplying Israel with weapons in the middle of the conflict, which Jon Stewart mocked to his mostly-young viewing audience of millions.

The obscene U.S. media behavior was possible during past conflicts because there was nowhere else to go, but now the U.S. media monopoly stands busted, with truth leaking out from a thousand pores. Millions of Americans get their news from Facebook or other social media outlets, which allows those passionate about an issue to share their perspective with hundreds or even thousands of their FB “friends”, who in turn “share” the news with their friends.

Furthermore, cable and internet providers now put Americans in direct contact with the new state-sponsored media outlets of other countries, who’ve copied the U.S. media’s flashy professionalism and now provide competing English speaking news with wildly clashing perspectives that often expose the U.S. media’s incompetence. Some examples include Russian Television (RT), Press TV (Iranian), al-Jazeera (Qatari), and Venezuela recently created an English speaking news service from its Telesur network.

The consequence of all the pro-Israeli propaganda is that millions of Americans are learning quite a lot, simply by comparing what they see on Facebook versus the garbage spewed on CNN or MSNBC.

A pew research poll showed that younger Americans, aged 18-29, were more likely to blame Israel for the violence in Gaza than Hamas. This is astonishing given the media spin onslaught, and proves that younger folks simply don’t believe CNN, Fox News, MSNBC or President Obama anymore. The younger generation prefers truth.

This distrust in media and government is more consequential than first appears. Realizing that your government and media are lying is a huge political step to take; especially when it’s the entire Congress who are voting to support Israel—including so-called “progressive” Democrats Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

This radical skepticism removes a mental dam that allows new ideas to flow in, while spotting the stupid propaganda that previously went unnoticed. This is how political consciousness is born, and thousands of people will remember the invasion of Gaza as ‘the moment’ they became politically aware, if not also the first protest they attended. As Obama stands by his “close ally” Israel in the face of Nazi-like atrocities, his is giving birth to thousands of newly-conscious people every day, undermining the base of support for future military adventures abroad.

And there can be no doubt that new U.S. military campaigns are on the horizon. As Obama ignores Israel’s obvious war crimes he’d like us to pay particular attention to Russia, and China, or push us back onto the war path with Syria.

The snowballing unpopularity of U.S. foreign policy will not stop the corporate-influenced U.S. government in attempting to lie its way into a new war, since the ultra-rich rightfully fear their profits are threatened by the rising economic powers of China, Russia, and other countries.

As political consciousness rises among new layers of Americans they will become less susceptible to the lie that there is “ no money” for jobs, schools, health care, and social services in the U.S., since they are watching hundreds of billions of their tax dollars find expression in the Israeli demolishing of Gazan’s homes, with families buried under the debris. This U.S. sponsored war—as well as future ones—are laying the foundation for the end of wars, based on the political awakening and consequent action of the next generation.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action ( www.workerscompass.org ).

08 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By David Swanson

President Obama may want us to sympathize with patriotic torturers, he may turn on whistleblowers like a flesh-eating zombie, he may have lost all ability to think an authentic thought, but I will say this for him: He knows how to mark the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin fraud like a champion.

It’s back in Iraq, Jack! Yackety yack! Obama says the United States has fired missiles and dropped food in Iraq — enough food to feed 8,000, enough missiles to kill an unknown number (presumably 7,500 or fewer keeps this a “humanitarian” effort). The White House told reporters on a phone call following the President’s Thursday night speech that it is expediting weapons to Iraq, producing Hellfire missiles and ammunition around the clock, and shipping those off to a nation where Obama swears there is no military solution and only reconciliation can help. Hellfire missiles are famous for helping people reconcile.

Obama went straight into laying out his excuses for this latest war, before speaking against war and in favor of everything he invests no energy in. First, the illegitimate government of Iraq asked him to do it. Second, ISIS is to blame for the hell that the United States created in Iraq. Third, there are still lots of places in the world that Obama has not yet bombed. Oh, and this is not really a war but just protection of U.S. personnel, combined with a rescue mission for victims of a possible massacre on a scale we all need to try to understand.

Wow! We need to understand the scale of killing in Iraq? This is the United States you’re talking to, the people who paid for the slaughter of 0.5 to 1.5 million Iraqis this decade. Either we’re experts on the scale of mass killings or we’re hopelessly incapable of understanding such matters.

Completing the deja vu all over again Thursday evening, the substitute host of the Rachel Maddow Show seemed eager for a new war on Iraq, all of his colleagues approved of anything Obama said, and I heard “Will troops be sent?” asked by several “journalists,” but never heard a single one ask “Will families be killed?”

Pro-war veteran Democratic congressman elected by war opponents Patrick Murphy cheered for Obama supposedly drawing a red line for war. Murphy spoke of Congress without seeming aware that less than two weeks ago the House voted to deny the President any new war on Iraq. There are some 199 members of the House who may be having a hard time remembering that right now.

Pro-war veteran Paul Rieckhoff added that any new veterans created would be heroes, and — given what a “mess” Iraq is now — Rieckhoff advocated “looking forward.” The past has such an extreme antiwar bias.

Rounding out the reunion of predictable pro-war platitudes and prevarications, Nancy Pelosi immediately quoted the bits of Obama’s speech that suggested he was against the war he was starting. Can Friedman Units and benchmarks be far behind?

Obama promises no combat troops will be sent back to Iraq. No doubt. Instead it’ll be planes, drones, helicopters, and “non-combat” troops. “America is coming to help” finally just sounded as evil as Reagan meant it to, but it was in Obama’s voice. The ironies exploded like Iraqi houses on Thursday. While the United States locks Honduran refugee children in cages, it proposes to bomb Iraq for refugees. While Gaza starves and Detroit lacks water, Obama bombs Iraq to stop people from starving. While the U.S. ships weapons to Israel to commit genocide, and to Syria for allies of ISIS, it is rushing more weapons into Iraq to supposedly prevent genocide on a mountaintop — also to add to the weapons supplies already looted by ISIS.

Of course, it’s also for “U.S. interests,” but if that means U.S. people, why not pull them out? If it means something else, why not admit as much in the light of day and let the argument die of shame?

Let me add a word to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman David Swanson, who is not me and whom I do not know: Please do keep pushing for actual humanitarian aid. But if you spoke against the missiles that are coming with the food, the reporters left that bit out. You have to fit it into the same sentence with the food and water if you want it quoted. I hope there is an internal U.N. lobby for adoption by the U.N. of the U.N. Charter, and if there is I wish it all the luck in the world.

David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org
08 August, 2014
Warisacrime.org

 

By Dr Gideon Polya

The whole world has been horrified by Apartheid Israel ‘s latest Gaza Massacre that has killed 1,900 Occupied Palestinians and wounded 10,000. Even the unrepentant war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu looks chastened by the reality that 7 billion human beings now regard him with his predecessor PM Ehud Olmert as the “Butchers of Gaza” over successive Gaza Massacres, just as former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is forever known as the “Butcher of Beirut” over the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. However the Zionist Lobbies have muted the Western response and in Australia , neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel ‘s best friend after the US , the vociferous and venomous Israel Lobby has driven one of Australia ‘s top journalists, Mike Carlton, from his job with the Sydney Melbourne Herald after he forcefully criticized this latest Israeli Gaza Massacre [1, 2].

Genocidal, neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel has temporarily suspended its latest Gaza Massacre in the Gaza Concentration Camp, This atrocity has so far has been associated with 1,900 Palestinians killed, 10,000 wounded, and 450,000 displaced with 1.8 million Gazans ( 0.9 million of them children) variously traumatized by Apartheid Israel (or more exactly, Nazi Israel if one accepts that Nazi is as Nazi does) – and all this horror in response to the murder of 3 Israeli settler teenagers killed by persons unknown (possibly Israeli state terrorists) , and zero (0) Israelis killed by Gaza rockets in the year before the latest Israeli invasion. Indeed 28 Israelis have been killed by Gaza rockets since the start of the Intifada in 2000 or 2 per year as compared to a total of about 130 Israelis murdered by fellow Israelis each year [3].

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”. However these sacred injunctions are grossly violated by the anti-Arab anti-Semitic racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel and their Western backers variously involved in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Somali Genocide, and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 0.3 million (1967-2011), 4.6 million (1990-2011), 2.2 million (1992-2011) and 5.6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million, 2.0 million, 1.3 million and 2.9 million, respectively; refugees totalling 7 million, 5-6 million, 2 million and 3-4 million, respectively, plus millions of NW Pakistan Pashtun refugees).

All decent, anti-racist, humanitarians must vigorously oppose and sideline those supporting genocidally racist Zionism, Apartheid Israel and racist Western wars and occupations who are currently complicit in 0.7 million non-violent excess deaths annually in the American Empire; continuing, racist perversion of human rights, humanitarian values and rational discourse in the Western democracies; ignoring of worsening climate genocide (that may kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century through unaddressed man-made climate change); and egregious anti-Jewish anti-Semitism through defaming anti-racist Jews critical of horrendous Apartheid Israeli crimes and falsely identifying decent, anti-racist Jews with these appalling crimes.

Decent people cannot walk by on the other side. However Mike Carlton, one of Australia ‘s top newspaper columnists, has been punished by his employer and driven to resigning his job with the Sydney Morning Herald after he responded angrily to a torrent of Zionist abuse after his forthright criticism of Apartheid Israel ‘s latest Gaza Massacre in the Gaza Concentration Camp.

This is in part what offended Zionist Australians when Mike Carlton responded to neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel ‘s ongoing Gaza Massacre: “Yes, Hamas is also trying to kill Israeli civilians, with a barrage of rockets and guerilla border attacks. It, too, is guilty of terror and grave war crimes. But Israeli citizens and their homes and towns have been effectively shielded by the nation’s Iron Dome defence system, and so far only three of its civilians have died in this latest conflict. The Israeli response has been out of all proportion, a monstrous distortion of the much-vaunted right of self defence. It is a breathtaking irony that these atrocities can be committed by a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory. But this is a new and brutal Israel dominated by the hardline, right-wing Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition… Fascism in Israel ? At this point the Australian Likudniks, as Bob Carr calls them, will be lunging for their keyboards. There will be the customary torrent of abusive emails calling me a Nazi, an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, an ignoramus. As usual they will demand my resignation, my sacking. As it’s been before, some of this will be pornographic or threatening violence… That is why the killing and the dying goes on. Ad nauseam, ad infinitum. And the rest of the world, not caring, looks away” [1].

Gideon Levy (an anti-racist Jewish Israeli columnist and editorial board member of the progressive daily newspaper Ha’aretz) on the Gaza Massacre by a Fascist Apartheid Israel (2014): “All the seeds of the incitement of the past few years, all the nationalistic, racist legislation and the incendiary propaganda, the scare campaigns and the subversion of democracy by the right-wing camp – all these have borne fruit, and that fruit is rank and rotten. The nationalist right has now sunk to a new level, with almost the whole country following in its wake. The word ‘fascism’, which I try to use as little as possible, finally has its deserved place in the Israeli political discourse” [1].

One is reminded of Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and numerous other eminent anti-racist Jewish scholars decrying Nazi-style Irgun Zionists in a letter to the New York Times in 1948 : “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine … The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a ” Leader State ” is the goal. In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin. The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism” [4].

Fascist is a fascist does (corporatist, anti-democratic, militarist, imperialist, human rights abusing i.e. upfront versions of the dominant, partly democracy-constrained, closet fascist Western corporatists ) . Nazi is as Nazi does (Nazism being a genocidal version of Fascism).

Outstanding anti-racist Jewish Canadian writer and humanitarian activist Naomi Klein has stated the fundamental anti-racist Jewish position against the ongoing Palestinian Genocide by neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel (2007): “ There is a debate among Jews – I’m a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: “Never again to everyone, or never again to us?… [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card…There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say[s], ‘Never again to anyone.”” [5].

Indeed Moshe Menuhin ( father of famous violinist and universalist Yehudi Menuhin and author of “The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time”, “Jewish Critics of Zionism”, and of the family history “The Menuhin Saga”) stated of Israeli oppression of Palestinians: “Jews should be Jews – not Nazis” [6].

For his forthright humane decency Mike Carlton was abused by pro-Zionists who evidently approve of neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel ‘s mass murder of Palestinian children. Mike Carlton told the worst of these Zionists to “—- off. ” In Mike Carlton’s own words about his punishment and resignation : “When for weeks you’re called Nazi scum and a lot worse, eventually it gets to you and I told a few people where to go. I would have thought in this country of ours that telling a few people where to get off occasionally was not a crime, but the sad thing is to see a once-great newspaper like the Herald buckle to the bullies. Certainly the understanding I had with the editor-in-chief was that there would be apologies and that I would carry on. Higher up the food chain they wanted me suspended for four to six weeks. That was [Sean] Aylmer , and that’s when I resigned last night. I’d like to thank my colleagues at the Herald for the massive support they’re giving me right now” [2].

Again one is reminded of the wise, eminent , anti-racist counsel from the past, specifically that of Sir Isaac Isaacs, Australia’s most famous Jewish government figure and Australia’s first Australian-born Governor General (1946): “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism” and “The Zionist movement as a whole…now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world” [7].

The traitorous, anti- Arab anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, racist Zionist Lobby has scored a major victory in forcing an honorable humanitarian, Mike Carlton, out of his job with a major Australian newspaper, the Fairfax-owned Sydney Morning Herald. Hopefully this Zionist victory will be a Pyrrhic one and decent anti-racist Australians will be prompted to urge the sidelining of the genocidally racist Zionists and their racist supporters from public life as has happened already to Nazis, neo-Nazis, Apartheiders and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Of course Mike Carlton is not the only decent human being savaged by the Zionist Lobby over criticism of Israeli war crimes. Thus Helen Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was an Arab American author and news service reporter, and famous as the doyen of the White House press corps and as an opinion columnist. She was forced to resign her job when, having been asked for comments on Israel , she replied: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” and “Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not German, it’s not Poland …” and when asked where Israeli Jews should go, she replied that they could “go home” to Poland or Germany or ” America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?” [8].

Indeed at present the British Zionist Lobby has turned it venom on John Prescott (Bar on Prescott, Lord Prescott, a British Labour politician who was the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 ) for commenting thus on neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel’s latest Gaza Massacre inflicted on the Gaza Concentration Camp (2014): “ Those who live in Gaza are kept like prisoners behind walls and fences, unable to escape the bombings, and an Israeli economic blockade has forced Palestinians into poverty. Israel ‘s Iron Dome defence system easily intercepts missiles launched from Gaza . Three Israeli citizens have died from these ­primitive rockets, with 32 soldiers killed fighting Hamas. Compare that to the toll in Gaza . Of the 1,000-plus to die, more than 80 per cent were ­civilians, mostly women and children. But who is to say some of the other 20 per cent weren’t ­innocent too? Israel brands them terrorists but it is acting as judge, jury and ­executioner in the ­concentration camp that is Gaza . And Israel flouts international law by continuing to build illegal Jewish settlements. Why? Because it knows it can get away with it. What happened to the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis is appalling. But you would think those atrocities would give Israelis a unique sense of perspective and empathy with the victims of a ghetto … We must force Israel to end the blockade on Gaza to ensure free and unfettered access for humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials. There must be a freeze on illegal settlement growth to let talks start. We should support a phased approach to end the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem within a reasonable timeframe. The EU should play a bigger role in supporting ­mediation and push for ­sanctions for non-compliance. The lack of a two-state solution is a running sore that continues to inflame the passions not just of ­Palestinians and Muslims, but all fair-minded people around the world. We cannot be a silent witness to this carnage one minute longer. The world must force Israel and Hamas to stop this endless cycle of death” [9].

Numerous anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, writers and leaders are variously opposed – like Mike Carlton – to the horrendous human rights abuses of nuclear terrorist, genocidal, racist Zionist-run , democracy-by-genocide , neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel [10-14]. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity we cannot walk by on the other side. Decent anti-racist folk around the world will honour Australian journalist Mike Carlton for standing up for humanity against the war crimes of a neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel .

Decent people around the world must:

(1) inform everyone they can about the horrendous lies, human rights abuses and war crimes of Apartheid Israel (Nazi Israel) in its ongoing Palestinian Genocide;

(2) demand immediate cessation of murderous Israeli violence, human rights abuse, Palestinian Exile and Palestinian Occupation;

(3) demand equal rights and one-man-one-vote for all the present subjects of Apartheid Israel in the former Mandatory Palestine and indeed for all in a secure, just and reconciled unitary Palestinian state that permits all Palestinian refugees to return (90% of Palestine has now been ethnically cleansed i.e. a just “2-state” solution is dead);

(4) demand justice through the International Criminal Court or through an International Tribunal of the most eminent humanitarians; and

(5) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against not just US-, UK-, EU-, Canada- and Australia-backed Apartheid Israel but also, where practicable, against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, companies, corporations and countries complicit in neo-Nazi Apartheid Israeli state terrorism and US state terrorism in Palestine, the Middle East, and indeed throughout the world.

This must be the last Gaza Massacre and all Humanity must stand up and say “Free Palestine” NOW.

References

[1]. Mike Carlton, “ Israel ‘s rank and rotten fruit is being called fascism”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/israels-rank-and-rotten-fruit-is-being-called-fascism-20140724-zwd2t.html .

[2]. Megan Levy, “Mike Carlton resigns from the Sydney Morning Herald”, Sydney Morning Herald , 6 August 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mike-carlton-resigns-from-the-sydney-morning-herald-20140806-100w1u.html .

[3]. Gideon Polya, “ Israel ‘s Gaza Massacre: 55 anti-racist Australian MPs condemn Israeli war crimes and Occupation ”, Countercurrents, 31 July 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310714.htm .

[4]. Letter by Albert Einstein and many other signatories to the New York Times, 4 December 1948, “New Palestine Party. Visit of Menachen Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed”,. a letter to The New York Times, published in the “Books” section (Page 12) of the New York Times, Saturday December 4, 1948: http://www.archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948 .

[5]. Naomi Klein quoted by Yotam Feldman, “Naomi Klein: oppose the state not the people”, Ha’aretz, 2 July 2007: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097058.html .

[6]. Moshe Menuhin quoted by Grace Halsell in “Like father, like son: a tribute to Moshe and Yehudi Menuhin”, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), July 1996: http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0796/9607018.htm .

[7]. Sir Isaac Isaacs, quoted by Wikipedia, ”Isaac Isaacs”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Isaacs .

[8]. Helen Thomas, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Thomas .

[9]. John Prescott, “John Prescott: Israel ‘s bombardment of Gaza is a war crime – and it must end”, Daily Mail, 26 July 2014: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/john-prescott-israels-bombardment-gaza-3918413 .

[10]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[11]. “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[12]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[13]. “Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration .

[14]. “Boycott Apartheid Israel ”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/ .

Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003).

08 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Patrick Cockburn

As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by Isis on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area larger than Great Britain and inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland. In a few weeks of fighting in Syria Isis has established itself as the dominant force in the Syrian opposition, routing the official al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor and executing its local commander as he tried to flee. In northern Syria some five thousand Isis fighters are using tanks and artillery captured from the Iraqi army in Mosul to besiege half a million Kurds in their enclave at Kobani on the Turkish border. In central Syria, near Palmyra, Isis fought the Syrian army as it overran the al-Shaer gasfield, one of the largest in the country, in a surprise assault that left an estimated three hundred soldiers and civilians dead. Repeated government counter-attacks finally retook the gasfield but Isis still controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production. The Caliphate may be poor and isolated but its oil wells and control of crucial roads provide a steady income in addition to the plunder of war.

The birth of the new state is the most radical change to the political geography of the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was implemented in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet this explosive transformation has created surprisingly little alarm internationally or even among those in Iraq and Syria not yet under the rule of Isis. Politicians and diplomats tend to treat Isis as if it is a Bedouin raiding party that appears dramatically from the desert, wins spectacular victories and then retreats to its strongholds leaving the status quo little changed. Such a scenario is conceivable but is getting less and less likely as Isis consolidates its hold on its new conquests in an area that may soon stretch from Iran to the Mediterranean.

The very speed and unexpectedness of its rise make it easy for Western and regional leaders to hope that the fall of Isis and the implosion of the Caliphate might be equally sudden and swift. But all the evidence is that this is wishful thinking and the trend is in the other direction, with the opponents of Isis becoming weaker and less capable of resistance: in Iraq the army shows no signs of recovering from its earlier defeats and has failed to launch a single successful counter-attack; in Syria the other opposition groups, including the battle-hardened fighters of al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, are demoralised and disintegrating as they are squeezed between Isis and the Assad government. Karen Koning Abuzayd, a member of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry in Syria, says that more and more Syrian rebels are defecting to Isis: ‘They see it’s better, these guys are strong, these guys are winning battles, they were taking territory, they have money, they can train us.’ This is bad news for the government, which barely held off an assault in 2012 and 2013 by rebels less well trained, organised and armed than Isis; it will have real difficulties stopping the forces of the Caliphate advancing west.

In Baghdad there was shock and terror on 10 June at the fall of Mosul and as people realised that trucks packed with Isis gunmen were only an hour’s drive away. But instead of assaulting Baghdad, Isis took most of Anbar, the vast Sunni province that sprawls across western Iraq on either side of the Euphrates. In Baghdad, with its mostly Shia population of seven million, people know what to expect if the murderously anti-Shia Isis forces capture the city, but they take heart from the fact that the calamity has not happened yet. ‘We were frightened by the military disaster at first but we Baghdadis have got used to crises over the last 35 years,’ one woman said. Even with Isis at the gates, Iraqi politicians have gone on playing political games as they move ponderously towards replacing the discredited prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

‘It is truly surreal,’ a former Iraqi minister said. ‘When you speak to any political leader in Baghdad they talk as if they had not just lost half the country.’ Volunteers had gone to the front after a fatwa from the grand ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric. But these militiamen are now streaming back to their homes, complaining that they were half-starved and forced to use their own weapons and buy their own ammunition. The only large-scale counter-attack launched by the regular army and the newly raised Shia militia was a disastrous foray into Tikrit on 15 July that was ambushed and defeated with heavy losses. There is no sign that the dysfunctional nature of the Iraqi army has changed. ‘They were using just one helicopter in support of the troops in Tikrit,’ the former minister said, ‘so I wonder what on earth happened to the 140 helicopters the Iraqi state has bought in recent years?’

Probably the money for the missing 139 helicopters was simply stolen. There are other wholly corrupt states in the world but few of them have oil revenues of $100 billion a year to steal from. The sole aim of many officials has long been to get the largest kickback possible and they did not much care if jihadi groups did the same. I met a Turkish businessman in Baghdad who said he had had a large construction contract in Mosul over the last few years. The local emir or leader of Isis, then known as al-Qaida in Iraq, demanded $500,000 a month in protection money from the company. ‘I complained again and again about this to the government in Baghdad,’ the businessman said, ‘but they would do nothing about it except to say that I could add the money I paid al-Qaida to the contract price.’ The emir was soon killed and his successor demanded that the protection money be increased to $1 million a month. The businessman refused to pay and one of his Iraqi employees was killed; he withdrew his Turkish staff and his equipment to Turkey. ‘Later I got a message from al-Qaida saying that the price was back down to $500,000 and I could come back,’ he said. This was some time before Isis captured the city.

In the face of these failures Iraq’s Shia majority is taking comfort from two beliefs that, if true, would mean the present situation is not as dangerous as it looks. They argue that Iraq’s Sunnis have risen in revolt and Isis fighters are only the shock troops or vanguard of an uprising provoked by the anti-Sunni policies and actions of Maliki. Once he is replaced, as is almost certain, Baghdad will offer the Sunnis a new power-sharing agreement with regional autonomy similar to that enjoyed by the Kurds. Then the Sunni tribes, former military officers and Baathists who have allowed Isis to take the lead in the Sunni revolt will turn on their ferocious allies. Despite all signs to the contrary, Shia at all levels are putting faith in this myth, that Isis is weak and can be easily discarded by Sunni moderates once they’ve achieved their goals. One Shia said to me: ‘I wonder if Isis really exists.’

Unfortunately, Isis not only exists but is an efficient and ruthless organisation that has no intention of waiting for its Sunni allies to betray it. In Mosul it demanded that all opposition fighters swear allegiance to the Caliphate or give up their weapons. In late June and early July they detained between 15 to 20 former officers from Saddam Hussein’s time, including two generals. Groups that had put up pictures of Saddam were told to take them down or face the consequences. ‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert on jihadists, said, ‘that the rest of the Sunni military opposition will be able to turn against Isis successfully. If they do, they will have to act as quickly as possible before Isis gets too strong.’ He points out that the supposedly more moderate wing of the Sunni opposition had done nothing to stop the remnants of the ancient Christian community in Mosul from being forced to flee after Isis told them they had to convert to Islam, pay a special tax or be killed. Members of other sects and ethnic groups denounced as Shia or polytheists are being persecuted, imprisoned and murdered. The moment is passing when the non-Isis opposition could successfully mount a challenge.

The Iraqi Shia offer another explanation for the way their army disintegrated: it was stabbed in the back by the Kurds. Seeking to shift the blame from himself, Maliki claims that Erbil, the Kurdish capital, ‘is a headquarters for Isis, Baathists, al-Qaida and terrorists’. Many Shia believe this: it makes them feel that their security forces (nominally 350,000 soldiers and 650,000 police) failed because they were betrayed and not because they wouldn’t fight. One Iraqi told me he was at an iftar meal during Ramadan ‘with a hundred Shia professional people, mostly doctors and engineers and they all took the stab-in-the-back theory for granted as an explanation for what went wrong’. The confrontation with the Kurds is important because it makes it impossible to create a united front against Isis. The Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, took advantage of the Iraqi army’s flight to seize all the territories, including the city of Kirkuk, which have been in dispute between Kurds and Arabs since 2003. He now has a 600-mile common frontier with the Caliphate and is an obvious ally for Baghdad, where Kurds make up part of the government. By trying to scapegoat the Kurds, Maliki is ensuring that the Shia will have no allies in their confrontation with Isis if it resumes its attack in the direction of Baghdad. Isis and their Sunni allies have been surprised by the military weakness of the Baghdad government. They are unlikely to be satisfied with regional autonomy for Sunni provinces and a larger share of jobs and oil revenues. Their uprising has turned into a full counter-revolution that aims to take back power over all of Iraq.

At the moment Baghdad has a phoney war atmosphere like London or Paris in late 1939 or early 1940, and for similar reasons. People had feared an imminent battle for the capital after the fall of Mosul, but it hasn’t happened yet and optimists hope it won’t happen at all. Life is more uncomfortable than it used to be, with only four hours of electricity on some days, but at least war hasn’t yet come to the heart of the city. Nevertheless, some form of military attack, direct or indirect, will probably happen once Isis has consolidated its hold on the territory it has just conquered: it sees its victories as divinely inspired. It believes in killing or expelling Shia rather than negotiating with them, as it has shown in Mosul. Some Shia leaders may calculate that the US or Iran will always intervene to save Baghdad, but both powers are showing reluctance to plunge into the Iraqi quagmire in support of a dysfunctional government.

Iraq’s Shia leaders haven’t grappled with the fact that their domination over the Iraqi state, brought about by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is finished, and only a Shia rump is left. It ended because of their own incompetence and corruption and because the Sunni uprising in Syria in 2011 destabilised the sectarian balance of power in Iraq. Three years on, the Isis-led Sunni victory in Iraq threatens to break the military stalemate in Syria. Assad has been slowly pushing back against a weakening opposition: in Damascus and its outskirts, the Qalamoun mountains along the Lebanese border and Homs, government forces have been advancing slowly and are close to encircling the large rebel enclave in Aleppo. But Assad’s combat troops are noticeably thin on the ground, need to avoid heavy casualties and only have the strength to fight on one front at a time. The government’s tactic is to devastate a rebel-held district with artillery fire and barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, force most of the population to flee, seal off what may now be a sea of ruins and ultimately force the rebels to surrender. But the arrival of large numbers of well-armed Isis fighters fresh from recent successes will be a new and dangerous challenge for Assad. They overran two important Syrian army garrisons in the east in late July. A conspiracy theory, much favoured by the rest of the Syrian opposition and by Western diplomats, that Isis and Assad are in league, has been shown to be false.

Isis may well advance on Aleppo in preference to Baghdad: it’s a softer target and one less likely to provoke international intervention. This will leave the West and its regional allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – with a quandary: their official policy is to get rid of Assad, but Isis is now the second strongest military force in Syria; if he falls, it’s in a good position to fill the vacuum. Like the Shia leaders in Baghdad, the US and its allies have responded to the rise of Isis by descending into fantasy. They pretend they are fostering a ‘third force’ of moderate Syrian rebels to fight both Assad and Isis, though in private Western diplomats admit this group doesn’t really exist outside a few beleaguered pockets. Aymenn al-Tamimi confirms that this Western-backed opposition ‘is getting weaker and weaker’; he believes supplying them with more weapons won’t make much difference. Jordan, under pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia, is supposed to be a launching pad for this risky venture but it’s getting cold feet. ‘Jordan is frightened of Isis,’ one Jordanian official in Amman said. ‘Most Jordanians want Assad to win the war.’ He said Jordan is buckling under the strain of coping with vast numbers of Syrian refugees, ‘the equivalent of the entire population of Mexico moving into the US in one year’.

*

The foster parents of Isis and the other Sunni jihadi movements in Iraq and Syria are Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies and Turkey. This doesn’t mean the jihadis didn’t have strong indigenous roots, but their rise was crucially supported by outside Sunni powers. The Saudi and Qatari aid was primarily financial, usually through private donations, which Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, says were central to the Isis takeover of Sunni provinces in northern Iraq: ‘Such things do not happen spontaneously.’ In a speech in London in July, he said the Saudi policy towards jihadis has two contradictory motives: fear of jihadis operating within Saudi Arabia, and a desire to use them against Shia powers abroad. He said the Saudis are ‘deeply attracted towards any militancy which can effectively challenge Shiadom’. It’s unlikely the Sunni community as a whole in Iraq would have lined up behind Isis without the support Saudi Arabia gave directly or indirectly to many Sunni movements. The same is true of Syria, where Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to Washington and head of Saudi intelligence from 2012 to February 2014, was doing everything he could to back the jihadi opposition until his dismissal. Fearful of what they’ve helped create, the Saudis are now veering in the other direction, arresting jihadi volunteers rather than turning a blind eye as they go to Syria and Iraq, but it may be too late. Saudi jihadis have little love for the House of Saud. On 23 July, Isis launched an attack on one of the last Syrian army strongholds in the northern province of Raqqa. It began with a suicide car-bomb attack; the vehicle was driven by a Saudi called Khatab al-Najdi who had put pictures on the car windows of three women held in Saudi prisons, one of whom was Hila al-Kasir, his niece.

Turkey’s role has been different but no less significant than Saudi Arabia’s in aiding Isis and other jihadi groups. Its most important action has been to keep open its 510-mile border with Syria. This gave Isis, al-Nusra and other opposition groups a safe rear base from which to bring in men and weapons. The border crossing points have been the most contested places during the rebels’ ‘civil war within the civil war’. Most foreign jihadis have crossed Turkey on their way to Syria and Iraq. Precise figures are difficult to come by, but Morocco’s Interior Ministry said recently that 1122 Moroccan jihadists have entered Syria, including nine hundred who went in 2013, two hundred of whom were killed. Iraqi security suspects that Turkish military intelligence may have been heavily involved in aiding Isis when it was reconstituting itself in 2011. Reports from the Turkish border say Isis is no longer welcome, but with weapons taken from the Iraqi army and the seizure of Syrian oil and gasfields, it no longer needs so much outside help.

For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of Isis and the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster. Whatever they intended by their invasion of Iraq in 2003 and their efforts to get rid of Assad in Syria since 2011, it was not to see the creation of a jihadi state spanning northern Iraq and Syria run by a movement a hundred times bigger and much better organised than the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden. The war on terror for which civil liberties have been curtailed and hundreds of billions of dollars spent has failed miserably. The belief that Isis is interested only in ‘Muslim against Muslim’ struggles is another instance of wishful thinking: Isis has shown it will fight anybody who doesn’t adhere to its bigoted, puritanical and violent variant of Islam. Where Isis differs from al-Qaida is that it’s a well-run military organisation that is very careful in choosing its targets and the optimum moment to attack them.

Many in Baghdad hope the excesses of Isis – for example, blowing up mosques it deems shrines, like that of Younis (Jonah) in Mosul – will alienate the Sunnis. In the long term they may do just that, but opposing Isis is very dangerous and, for all its brutality, it has brought victory to a defeated and persecuted Sunni community. Even those Sunnis in Mosul who don’t like it are fearful of the return of a vengeful Shia-dominated Iraqi government. So far Baghdad’s response to its defeat has been to bomb Mosul and Tikrit randomly, leaving local people in no doubt about its indifference to their welfare or survival. The fear will not change even if Maliki is replaced by a more conciliatory prime minister. A Sunni in Mosul, writing just after a missile fired by government forces had exploded in the city, told me: ‘Maliki’s forces have already demolished the University of Tikrit. It has become havoc and rubble like all the city. If Maliki reaches us in Mosul he will kill its people or turn them into refugees. Pray for us.’ Such views are common, and make it less likely that Sunnis will rise up in opposition to Isis and its Caliphate. A new and terrifying state has been born.

Patrick Cockburn has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979, first for the Financial Times, then for the Independent.

1 August 2014

By Peter Symonds

In a statement signalling resumed US military operations in Iraq, President Obama announced yesterday evening in Washington that he had authorised American air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militia in northern Iraq.

The immediate pretext for the renewed military intervention is the plight of thousands of members of the Yazidi minority who have fled ISIS military advances and are reportedly trapped in mountainous areas of the Sinjar region in north-western Iraq. The Pentagon announced that the US military planes have already made air drops of food and water in the area.

In comments steeped in hypocrisy, Obama declared that the US could not “turn a blind eye” when the Iraqi religious minorities were threatened with a massacre. For the past month, the Obama administration has fully supported the Israeli slaughter of Palestinian civilians and levelling of large areas of the Gaza Strip.

Once again, US imperialism is playing the humanitarian card to justify its predatory aims. Obama’s phony professions of concern about the fate of Iraq’s Yazidi, Christian and other minorities are no more than a convenient excuse to put into action military plans drawn up over the past two months to combat ISIS militia.

The US has intervened in response to new ISIS offensives to the east and west of the northern city of Mosul, which its Islamist forces captured in June. Over the past week, ISIS and its Sunni militia allies have seized a major strategic dam and a series of towns that have brought them within striking distance of the Kurdish Autonomous Region and the regional capital of Erbil.

The collapse of resistance by the Kurdish peshmerga militias produced a degree of panic in Washington, as well as in Erbil and Baghdad. Washington has long relied on the Kurdish region as a base of operations inside Iraq. Following the fall of Mosul, Obama ordered hundreds more US special forces and other military personnel into Iraq and established joint operation centres in Baghdad and Erbil. Obama invoked the protection of US diplomatic and military personnel in Erbil as a second justification for authorising air strikes.

Despite denials from the Pentagon, Kurdish and Iraqi officials reported that US air strikes have already begun in northern Iraq. Kurdish military spokesman Holgard Hekmat told Agence France Presse that US war planes hit two targets in northern Iraq. “F-16s first entered Iraqi airspace reconnaissance mission and are now targeting Daash (ISIS) in Gwer and the Sinjar region.” He claimed that US war planes struck a key bridge connecting Mosul to Gwer, which lies just 30 kilometres from the main checkpoint into the Kurdish region.

A New York Times article reported officials on Kurdish television as saying that US war planes hit ISIS targets in the towns of Gwer and Mahmour. It also cited a top Iraqi official, close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who said the US consulted the Iraqi government late last night about launching air strikes, received the go-ahead and began bombing. In its denial, the Pentagon suggested that Turkish or Iraqi warplanes could have carried out the attacks.

In his statement, Obama indicated that the US was seeking support from its allies. France has already joined the propaganda campaign about the plight of the Yazidis and pushed for an emergency session of the UN Security Council, which condemned ISIS and called for international support for the Iraqi government. In a statement issued after speaking to Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, French President Francois Hollande declared that the persecution of religious minorities was “a very serious crime” and “confirmed France’s availability to bring support to the forces engaged in this combat.”

The propaganda campaign over Iraq’s minorities recalls the hue and cry in the international media in 2011 over the alleged threat to the population of Benghazi. This served as the pretext for imposing a no-fly zone over Libya as part of the regime-change operation to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Now the tattered banner of humanitarianism is again being raised in Iraq to justify military operations to shore up vital imperialist interests in the Kurdish Autonomous Region and Iraq more broadly.

ISIS itself is a product of the criminal operations of US imperialism in the Middle East over the past two decades. Faced with mounting resistance to its illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, Washington deliberately inflamed sectarian Shiite-Sunni divisions. This played directly into the hands of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which transformed into ISIS. Its militia have been part of the US backed regime-change operation in neighbouring Syria, aimed at ousting President Bashir al-Assad, which is being funded and armed by US allies, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

While condemning the depredations of ISIS inside Iraq, the US remains silent about ISIS’s operations within Syria against the Assad regime. The Islamic extremists, who seek to establish a caliphate over the whole region, draw no such distinction. Their military offensives toward the Kurdish regions of Iraq coincide with an attempt that began last month to seize the largely Kurdish city of Ain al-Arab in Syria.

The Obama administration has, until now, held off providing military support to the Iraqi government against ISIS in a bid to force Maliki to abandon plans for a third term as prime minister. The US and allies such as Saudi Arabia regard Maliki as too closely aligned with Iran and have blamed him for alienating the country’s Sunni population. Obama’s authorisation of air strikes coincides not only with the ISIS threat to the Kurdish north, but with the deadline for anointing a replacement prime minister.

In launching a new air war in Iraq, Obama is acutely conscious of widespread anti-war sentiment in the US and internationally, generated in no small part by the brutal, US-led occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011. “I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,” he declared last night. However, the determination of US imperialism to maintain a dominant position in Iraq and the Middle East has a logic of its own—having despatched hundreds of US military advisers to Iraq and now unleashed US air power, the US is already enmeshed in an escalating conflict that not only involves Iraq and Syria but could draw in other regional powers.

8 August, 2014
WSWS.org

 

 

By Gary Corseri
“War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength,” Orwell told us in “1984.” All oxymoronically true and sad in our twisted world today. But, perhaps the greatest truth that prophet propounded was this: Whoever controls the information controls the imagination.

A couple of weeks before Israel’s most recent war on Gaza-Palestine, while zoning-out-channel-surfing after a day of some cerebration, I came upon that 90s movie, “Something Wild.” The first time I saw it, I was 20 years younger and lost myself in Melanie Griffith’s sumptuous curves. What struck me most this time was one of the last scenes: the spurned, crazy husband—scarily well-acted by Rob Lowe—keeps striking, beating, pummeling, his estranged wife (Melanie), while complaining: Why do you make me do this? Why do you make me hurt you? See what you make me do? Why? Why!?

A similar tone was set in Israel right after the disappearance of 3 hitchhiking Jewish youths (one an American) outside of an (illegal) settlement in the West Bank. Before anything was known about the fate of these young men, Netanyahu summarily declared the kidnappers “animals” and sent out his storm troopers to arrest over 300 Palestinian “suspects.” Eleven Palestinians “suspects” were killed while resisting the round-up. Then, a hapless Palestinian youth was captured by Israeli hoodlums (fanatical “patriots”?), forced to drink gasoline and set on fire. His American cousin was beaten by police—caught on cameras. No talk about “animals” this time. Rockets were fired from Gaza—mostly ineffectual thanks to the US-built and financed “Iron Dome.” Israel has responded with massacres, day after day, slaughtering as many as 1900 Gazans—mostly civilians, and hundreds of children.

See what you make me do? Israel and its US supporters cry in unison. Why do you make me do this? Why do you make me hurt you? Why? Why!?

I write “USrael” because we seem to have morphed into one Empire/Country/Entity. After all, the super-power supports the Middle East outpost of its power to the tune of some 3 billion dollars per year—by far more money than we give in “foreign aid” to any other country. And, we’ve been doing it for decades and our do-nothing Congress has just allocated hundreds of millions of dollars more to “replenish” the Iron Dome. (They could not come to any decision about the US-originated “crisis” on our own border, but AIPAC quickly whipped them into demopublican alignment concerning the “crisis” on Israel’s imposed siege-“border.”) I have wondered: If we really wanted to promote peace in the Middle East, shouldn’t we have built an Iron Dome for the Palestinians, too? When do “defensive systems” become offensive systems—allowing those within the “forts” to feel so strong they can venture into “Indian territory,” ransack, pillage and kill and then retreat behind their fortifications? This, of course, is the strategy the US employed against its own native population in the “settlement” of its “western territories.” We, too, answered critics of that expansionism by promulgating “chosen-people-manifest destiny.” A more honest riposte in the case of USrael would have been: “Might makes right!”

Returning to my home in the South, after a 3-week sojourn in DC (where I could at least get some alternative news programs such as “Democracy Now” or those on RT), I find that my 16-year old refrigerator is dying, making a noise that variously shrieks, squeals, moans. At the same time, my Internet connections is erratic and I can barely get news beyond Scott Pelly talking about the ISIS-Sunni “genocide” against the Shiites in Iraq, or the professional Jewish apologists, Dershowitz and Krauthammer, appearing all over the place, proclaiming that every other nation would behave just as Israel is behaving against the Hamas “terrorists”! Yes, they acknowledge, some 1900 Palestinians have died and fewer than 70 Israelis have died—mostly invading soldiers, they don’t tell us—but why should Israel be expected to behave differently from other countries?

From my childhood I recall my Jewish mother telling me that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” From my reading and re-reading, I recall Solomon’s words in The Book of Proverbs: “Envy not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.” And, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to its folly.”

What is one to make of a murderous fool like Netanyahu calling Palestinians “animals”? What should we make of a Jewish female member of the Knesset stating publicly that Palestinian children must be killed, mothers raped by Israeli soldiers; that they are all “snakes” who must be wiped out? What should we make of the fact that Netanyahu addresses our do-nothing Congress and gets more standing ovations from these AIPAC-sponsored dunces than any president in US history? Are we not one nation, one Empire, one people united against the “terrorists” of the Middle East? So, the story goes. So, the “information” is repeated ad nauseum .

While my refrigerator is dying and I cannot go out and buy food because I live in a car-dependent suburb and must wait for some technician to come and attend to my Internet connection, I play a little mind-game, one of those “thought-experiments” for which Einstein was famous. I am no Einstein, but I, too, am interested in relativity, and how things connect on various levels—quantum levels, if you will, individual to individual. When my refrigerator quiets a little, passes from squealing to a buzzing sound, I imagine it is like the buzzing of a drone over Palestine. The fact that my food supply is now limited to a couple of cans of soup makes me wonder what it is like to have no food for one’s babies.

But, it is no good. A pathetic attempt to imagine the unimaginable! Not even my experience with a tornado destroying my home above my head about a dozen years ago can help me to imagine the unrelenting terror of life in Gaza/Palestine now!

And, on the quantum level—Are these Palestinian children not our children, too? When the girls were kidnapped by a terrorist organization in Nigeria, was there not a universal cry to “Bring Back Our Girls”? When an Afghan girl was shot in the head because she wanted to attend school, was there not universal outrage?

Are the U.N. and the other international organizations established after the Second World War in order to prevent forever a return to war-mania and serial holocausts, now merely useless window-dressing to assure humanity there still is a humanity with a conscience?

Scott Pelly can talk now of “genocide” in Iraq, but he never peeped the word when the US killed a million Iraqis and displaced 4 million because of “weapons of mass destruction” that never existed!

Who controls the Information controls the Imagination!

Getting back to Einstein, he said that Imagination was more important than Knowledge. I think he meant this: Knowledge is well and good, but without Imagination, we shall never put things all together to get to Wisdom. And wisdom, as we learn from the Book of Proverbs, is “the principal thing: therefore, get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get thee understanding.”

The hydra-headed monster of USreal has been murdering democracy—in the name of democracy!—for about as long as I’ve dwelled on this sad planet. Because, like the Melanie Griffith character in “Something Wild,” THEY made us do it! THEY compelled us to go into Korea and Vietnam and kill millions! THEY compelled us to go into Iraq and Afghanistan because… well, Saddam Hussein’s soldiers were throwing babies on the floor, dashing their heads! Right? Er, right?

There never seems to be enough time for questioning, for cross-examination! “Facts” are presented as indisputable, and in the words of that consummate liar, Colin Powell, we are simply told, “Trust me.”

As Imagination dies, a culture dies, the Arts die, and a people die. The people enclose themselves in a fraudulent world, from which they lack the imagination to break out. They fail to see a “siege” for the act of war it really is. They fail to see the malfeasance of their elected officials as the criminal offense that it is. (“O, my offence is rank,” too-late awakened Claudius tells us in Hamlet ; “it smells to Heaven!”)

In Orwell’s other brilliant book, Animal Farm , he shows us how a collective of pigs has taken over from the other rebellious animals, killed off former leaders of the restive, idealistic group, and now amend the original declaration thus: All animals are equal; but some are more equal than others!

Too many in our “advanced, modern” world think they are “more equal than others”! They are “privileged,” “entitled,” “chosen.” In Madeleine Albright’s not very bright phrase: “the indispensable people.” Refusing to tell the whole story, failing to contextualize, to provide the essential background, they scarify Truth and disenfranchise the people’s right to know, to imagine, to feel deeply!

Two bits of truth did leak out while I scavenged among the rubble of the MSM: one news clip showed a Palestinian girl of ten who had awakened paralyzed in a hospital after her family had been killed by Israeli bombs. When she could not feel her limbs, she thought she had died.

Actually, she had died… the life she might have had, had died forever.

Another bit of truth showed another Palestinian girl, also ten. She had just witnessed her grandmother and three uncles being blown apart by Israeli bombs. She held her palms to her head and kept crying, “Enough! Enough! Enough!”

Gary Corseri has published novels and poetry collections, his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere, and he has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Center.

07 August, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Mohammed Omer

GAZA CITY – Without prior warning, an Israeli missile hit the house of the Ayyad family last Saturday. The Ayyads, who are Christian, were the first family among the tiny minority in Gaza to be targeted since the offensive began three weeks ago.

The Ayyad’s home was severely damaged. Furniture was ruined and family belongings such as children’s toys were strewn everywhere as a result of the missile’s impact. But naturally the human cost was much greater.

Jalila Ayyad was known among the people of Gaza as a woman that had nothing to do with any militia groups. “We are a Christian minority and have no links to Hamas or Fatah – we keep to ourselves and avoid problems,” says Fouad Ayyad, Jalila’s nephew.

Fouad is also the name of the bereaved husband of Jalila Ayyad. Standing in a white T-shirt stained with the blood of his wife and son – who was also seriously injured in the attack – he watches on as the nephew is interviewed.

A memorial service was held on Sunday for Ayyad at Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church on Sunday. The church has become a haven not just for Christian but also hundreds of Muslim families seeking shelter there as the offensive drags on.

“The church has been our hosts for the past two weeks, offering food, clothes and whatever we needed, their loss is our loss, their pain is our pain,” says 45-year-old Abu Khaled.

At the memorial service for Jalila, Archbishop Alexios said: “Another human being, an innocent one, has lost her life.” In the pews, crowds of Palestinian Christians sobbed as first from their tiny minority to be killed in the conflict was laid to rest.

In something that surprised local journalists, Jalila’s body was carried by both Muslims and Christians to the grave. It seems the shared wounds, mourning and rage are bridging past divides in war-ravaged Gaza.

Last week, Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Church also sustained damage by Israeli artillery shelling. Fifteen graves were damaged and damage was also caused to the Church’s sole hearse, says Kamel Ayyad, a parish member.

“The world must realise that Israel’s missiles don’t differentiate between Christians and Muslims,” said Abu.

At the memorial service a sad young man surrounded by attendees dressed in black gave a speech on behalf of the Greek Orthodox community and questioned the position of the international community in dealing with Israel’s crimes.

“Here is a Palestinian, an Arab, a Christian woman, martyred by Israeli shelling,” he said. “Bombs slammed into us and killed without differentiating between civilians and combatants,” he adds.

Father Manuel Musallam, a former priest of the Latin Church, has always been an advocate for Palestinian unity.

“When they destroy your mosques, call your prayers from our churches”.

There are approximately 1,500 Christians in Gaza. Mosques stand next to churches along the thin coastal enclave. George Ayyad, a relative of Jalila, rejects the idea that Christians will leave Gaza after this incident.

“This is exactly what the Israelis want, but where should we go?” he questions, before he continues “This is my homeland and we are Christians here in Gaza for more than 1,000 years and we will remain.”

During the memorial, bible scriptures were recited before Ayyad’s body was carried out and placed in a simple white coffin that had been decorated with a black cross.

Homeless Christians and Muslims brought out her remains together in the same community where Jalila will be buried, in the town she was born: in Gaza.

A Virgin Mary icon was placed in Jalila’s coffin while her relatives sang “Hallelujah.”

Mohammed Omer is an award winning Palestinian-Dutch journalist, based in Gaza.

30 July 2014