In the Russia Today's recent Crosstalk program on Syria, guest James Morris was brave enough to incisively point out the taboo fact that the Israel lobby has been in the forefront in pushing a hardline interventionist approach for the US toward that divided country. The host and the two other guests on the show pooh-poohed the idea on the grounds that (in their minds) it would not be in Israel's national interest to topple the secular Assad regime and possibly bring about an Islamist state that could be even more hostile to Israel. But when one moves from speculation to an analysis of the actual position of members of the Israel lobby, one can see that Morris was completely correct. Moreover, Morris was completely correct in pointing out that the Israel lobby's position has nothing to do with ending oppression, and everything to do with Israeli security, as members of the Israel lobby have perceived Israel's interest (which might not be the same as the Crosstalk threesome.) http://rt.com/programs/crosstalk/syrian-series-arab-league/
The neoconservatives, the vanguard of the Israel lobby, have especially been ardent in their advocacy of a hardline, interventionist position towardSyria. Evidence abounds for this finding, but it is best encapsulated by an August 2011 open letter from the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (an organization which claims to address any "threat facing America, Israel and the West") to President Obama, urging him to take stronger measures against Syria. Among the signatories of the letter are such neocon luminaries as: Elliott Abrams (son-in-law of neocon "godfather" Norman Podhoretz and a former National Security adviser to President George W. Bush); the Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot; "Weekly Standard" editor Bill Kristol; Douglas Feith (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under George W. Bush and an author of the "Clean Break" policy paper); Joshua Muravchik (affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute [AEI], the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and "Commentary"); Frederick W. Kagan (AEI, co-author of the "surge" in Iraq); Robert Kagan (co-founder of the Project for the New American Century PNAC); James Woolsey
(head of the CIA under Clinton and chair of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies); Randy Scheunemann (former President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and foreign affairs adviser to John McCain in his 2008 presidential campaign); Reuel Marc Gerecht (former Director of the Project for the New American Century's Middle East Initiative and a former resident fellow at AEI); Michael Makovsky (advisor to the propagandistic Office of Special Plans, which was under Douglas Feith); John Hannah ( senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [WINEP] and a former national security adviser to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney); and Gary Schmitt (AEI and former President for the Project for a New American Century).
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/19/conservatives_suggest_syr
ia_next_steps_0
As Morris notes in his presentation, elimination of the Assad regime in Syria was not an idea conceived by either the neocons or the broader Israel lobby; rather it can be traced back to the Israeli Likudniks, being articulated by Oded Yinon in his 1982 piece, "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties." In this article, Yinon called for Israel to use military means to bring about the dissolution of Israel's neighboring states and their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. Yinon believed that this would not be a difficult undertaking because nearly all the Arab states were afflicted with internal ethnic and religious divisions. In essence, the end result would be a Middle East of powerless mini-statelets that could in no way confront Israeli power. Lebanon, then facing divisive chaos, was Yinon's model for the entire Middle East. Yinon wrote: "Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target." (Quoted in "The Transparent Cabal," p. 51)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
A Death Sentence for Greece
On Sunday, the Greek parliament approved a new round of austerity measures that will further deepen the 5-year depression and sever the last fraying threads of social cohesion. In order to secure a 130 billion euro loan, Greek political leaders agreed to comply with a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) that will not only intensify the sacrifices of ordinary working people, but also effectively hand the control of the nation’s economy over to foreign banks and corporations.
The Memorandum is as calculating and mercenary as anything ever written. And while most of the attention has been focused on the deep cuts to supplementary pensions, the minimum wage, and private sector wages; there’s much more to this onerous warrant than meets the eye. The 43 page paper should be read in its entirety to fully appreciate the moral vacuity of the people who dictate policy in the EZ.
Greece will have to prove that it’s reached various benchmarks before it receives any of the money allotted in the bailout. The Memorandum outlines, in great detail, what those benchmarks are— everything from reduced spending on life-saving drugs to “lift(ing) constraints for retailers to sell restricted product categories such as baby food.”
That’s right; according to the author’s of this fuliginous memo, the only way Greece is going to be able to lift itself out of the doldrums is by poisoning its kids with banned baby food.
The MOU also calls for a 10 percent cut to government workers wages, cuts to “social security funds and hospitals”, and more privatizing of publicly-owned assets, all of which will only further shrink GDP.
The Memorandum is as calculating and mercenary as anything ever written. And while most of the attention has been focused on the deep cuts to supplementary pensions, the minimum wage, and private sector wages; there’s much more to this onerous warrant than meets the eye. The 43 page paper should be read in its entirety to fully appreciate the moral vacuity of the people who dictate policy in the EZ.
Greece will have to prove that it’s reached various benchmarks before it receives any of the money allotted in the bailout. The Memorandum outlines, in great detail, what those benchmarks are— everything from reduced spending on life-saving drugs to “lift(ing) constraints for retailers to sell restricted product categories such as baby food.”
That’s right; according to the author’s of this fuliginous memo, the only way Greece is going to be able to lift itself out of the doldrums is by poisoning its kids with banned baby food.
The MOU also calls for a 10 percent cut to government workers wages, cuts to “social security funds and hospitals”, and more privatizing of publicly-owned assets, all of which will only further shrink GDP.
On to Tehran – or Is It Damascus?
Our War Party has been temporarily diverted from its clamor for war on Iran by the insurrection against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Estimates of the dead since the Syrian uprising began a year ago approach 6,000. And responsibility for the carnage is being laid at the feet of the president who succeeded his dictator-father Hafez al-Assad, who ruled from 1971 until his death in 2000.
Unlike Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who buckled, broke, and departed after three weeks of protests, Bashar is not going quietly.
And, predictably, with the death toll rising, those champions of world democratic revolution — John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham — have begun beating the drums for U.S. aid to a “Free Syrian Army.”
Last week, the three senators jointly declared: “In Libya, the threat of imminent atrocities in Benghazi mobilized the world to act. Such atrocities are now a reality in Homs and other cities all across Syria. … We must consider … providing opposition groups inside Syria, both political and military, with better means to … defend themselves, and to fight back against Assad’s forces.”
“The end of Assad’s rule would … be a moral and humanitarian victory for the Syrian people” and “a strategic defeat for the Iranian regime.”
Estimates of the dead since the Syrian uprising began a year ago approach 6,000. And responsibility for the carnage is being laid at the feet of the president who succeeded his dictator-father Hafez al-Assad, who ruled from 1971 until his death in 2000.
Unlike Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who buckled, broke, and departed after three weeks of protests, Bashar is not going quietly.
And, predictably, with the death toll rising, those champions of world democratic revolution — John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham — have begun beating the drums for U.S. aid to a “Free Syrian Army.”
Last week, the three senators jointly declared: “In Libya, the threat of imminent atrocities in Benghazi mobilized the world to act. Such atrocities are now a reality in Homs and other cities all across Syria. … We must consider … providing opposition groups inside Syria, both political and military, with better means to … defend themselves, and to fight back against Assad’s forces.”
“The end of Assad’s rule would … be a moral and humanitarian victory for the Syrian people” and “a strategic defeat for the Iranian regime.”
Monday, February 13, 2012
John Derbyshire's CPAC Speech: Will Our Multicultural Elites Ever Become Race Realists?
That our elites might turn racist does indeed sound outlandish. The reigning doctrine on race throughout the Western world today is the Standard Social Science Model, which I'll just trim down to "Standard Model" in what follows. According to this doctrine, all observed group differences are the result of social forces. The Standard Model says that there is a conceivable, discoverable, attainable configuration of social forces in which all group differences would vanish; and that we ought to strive to shift our own society towards that configuration. Among our political and cultural elites, the Standard Model is universally accepted.
Looking to the future, there are three possibilities. One of them, Possibility One, is that our elites will continue to adhere to the Standard Model. The other two are implied in the extract I just quoted from Herrnstein and Murray: Possibility Two: We may attain "the candor and realism about race that is so urgently needed." Possibility Three: Our elites will revert to "open racism."
Let's take the three possibilities in turn. First, continued adherence to the Standard Model. Note that, taking group differences in all generality, the Standard Model is not preposterous. The social and economic underachievement of women in Moslem countries, for example, or for that matter in our own countries in times past, easily yields to a Standard Model analysis. Make some key changes in your laws and customs, and the men-women gap disappears. In some social areas it more than disappears: 57 percent of U.S. college students are female today.
In group difference of outcome between races, the Standard Model was likewise not preposterous fifty years ago. Here in the U.S.A., nonwhite citizens labored under well-known legal and social disabilities. In what we were just beginning to call the Third World, nonwhite populations had been humiliated and subordinated by decades of colonialism. Remove the disabilities, dismantle colonialism, and socio-economic group differences would surely melt away. The Standard Model as applied to race was not preposterous fifty years ago.
Looking to the future, there are three possibilities. One of them, Possibility One, is that our elites will continue to adhere to the Standard Model. The other two are implied in the extract I just quoted from Herrnstein and Murray: Possibility Two: We may attain "the candor and realism about race that is so urgently needed." Possibility Three: Our elites will revert to "open racism."
Let's take the three possibilities in turn. First, continued adherence to the Standard Model. Note that, taking group differences in all generality, the Standard Model is not preposterous. The social and economic underachievement of women in Moslem countries, for example, or for that matter in our own countries in times past, easily yields to a Standard Model analysis. Make some key changes in your laws and customs, and the men-women gap disappears. In some social areas it more than disappears: 57 percent of U.S. college students are female today.
In group difference of outcome between races, the Standard Model was likewise not preposterous fifty years ago. Here in the U.S.A., nonwhite citizens labored under well-known legal and social disabilities. In what we were just beginning to call the Third World, nonwhite populations had been humiliated and subordinated by decades of colonialism. Remove the disabilities, dismantle colonialism, and socio-economic group differences would surely melt away. The Standard Model as applied to race was not preposterous fifty years ago.
US Congress Pulsates With War Fever
The war of words between the US, Israel, and Iran intensifies by the day.
All the parties involved are shamelessly playing to domestic audiences in this election year. Israel keeps issuing threats it will attack Iran’s nuclear power installations, though some of its senior security officials downplay an alleged threat from Iran.
US intelligence still maintains Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. UN nuclear inspectors confirm this view, though they have been pressured by the US, which pays a quarter of UN salaries, to suggest Iran might be working on something nefarious – though all Iran’s nuclear sites are under strict UN inspection and satellite surveillance.
Not a peep from the UN about what global damage would be caused by an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. Radioactive dust storms, to say the least.
The US Congress pulsates with war fever, fuelled by oncoming elections and huge cash donations. North America’s media pounds the war drums.
Iran shows spectacular public relations ineptitude by fulminating against Israel, calling it a “tumor” that must be removed, and firing obsolete tactical missiles and staging flamboyant military exercises by its feeble armed forces.
All the parties involved are shamelessly playing to domestic audiences in this election year. Israel keeps issuing threats it will attack Iran’s nuclear power installations, though some of its senior security officials downplay an alleged threat from Iran.
US intelligence still maintains Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. UN nuclear inspectors confirm this view, though they have been pressured by the US, which pays a quarter of UN salaries, to suggest Iran might be working on something nefarious – though all Iran’s nuclear sites are under strict UN inspection and satellite surveillance.
Not a peep from the UN about what global damage would be caused by an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. Radioactive dust storms, to say the least.
The US Congress pulsates with war fever, fuelled by oncoming elections and huge cash donations. North America’s media pounds the war drums.
Iran shows spectacular public relations ineptitude by fulminating against Israel, calling it a “tumor” that must be removed, and firing obsolete tactical missiles and staging flamboyant military exercises by its feeble armed forces.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Anxiety about a Northwest White Homeland
The LATimes, always quick to pick up on new trends, published a propaganda piece by Kim Murphy which does its level best to pathologize Whites who want to live with other Whites (“White supremacists revive dream of a homeland in Northwest.”) (Actually, the trend has also been noticed by the SPLC and vy George Soros’ Media Matters.) The LATimes article is centered around the sentencing of Kevin Harpham to a 32-year prison term for leaving a backpack containing explosives along the route for a MLK-Day parade in January, 2011. What Harpham has to do with setting up a White homeland in the Northwest is left up to the reader’s conjecture, but I guess we are supposed to think that Whites who are motivated to have a place to call their own are basically bomb throwers at heart.
But wait. It gets worse–much worse:
In 2010, residents in several parts of Idaho woke to find Easter eggs tossed on their lawns — courtesy of the not-dead-yet Aryan Nations. The eggs contained jelly beans and solicitations to “take back our country and make it great, clean, decent and beautiful once again.”
Do these people have no shame?? Easter eggs and jelly beans. The horror!
Murphy uses the Harpham case and a firearms violation case, also from Spokane, to lead into a description of the nascent White homeland movement in Montana and Idaho. April Gaede is mentioned because of her work “appealing to white ‘refugees’ to establish a Pioneer Little Europe” in Kalispell, MT. Also mentioned is stalwart Canadian pro-White activist Paul Fromm (who has been invited to speak in the area) and conservative activist Chuck Baldwin, who has actually moved there.
But wait. It gets worse–much worse:
In 2010, residents in several parts of Idaho woke to find Easter eggs tossed on their lawns — courtesy of the not-dead-yet Aryan Nations. The eggs contained jelly beans and solicitations to “take back our country and make it great, clean, decent and beautiful once again.”
Do these people have no shame?? Easter eggs and jelly beans. The horror!
Murphy uses the Harpham case and a firearms violation case, also from Spokane, to lead into a description of the nascent White homeland movement in Montana and Idaho. April Gaede is mentioned because of her work “appealing to white ‘refugees’ to establish a Pioneer Little Europe” in Kalispell, MT. Also mentioned is stalwart Canadian pro-White activist Paul Fromm (who has been invited to speak in the area) and conservative activist Chuck Baldwin, who has actually moved there.
ACTIVE WAR PLANS: Pentagon plans US-backed War against Syria
The Pentagon has drawn up plans for military intervention in Syria.
A military strike would be coordinated with Turkey, the Gulf States and the NATO powers, according to reports that acknowledge such plans officially for the first time. The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, to allow President Barack Obama to maintain the pretense that the White House is still seeking a diplomatic solution.
This is considered vital, as military intervention would most likely be conducted through various Middle East proxies, which the US and NATO could then back with airpower. Turkey and the Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, do not want to be seen for what they are: stooges of the US. Deniability for them therefore requires the US to conceal the full extent of its involvement.
In the February 6 Financial Times, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, argued for “A little time… for continued diplomatic efforts aimed at shifting the allegiances of the Sunni merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo.”
As with the war against Libya last year, military intervention would again be justified citing the “responsibility to protect” civilians. But its real aim is regime change to install a Sunni government beholden to Washington, allied with the Gulf States, and hostile to Iran.
A State Department official told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that “the international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria” and that “the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy.”
A military strike would be coordinated with Turkey, the Gulf States and the NATO powers, according to reports that acknowledge such plans officially for the first time. The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, to allow President Barack Obama to maintain the pretense that the White House is still seeking a diplomatic solution.
This is considered vital, as military intervention would most likely be conducted through various Middle East proxies, which the US and NATO could then back with airpower. Turkey and the Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, do not want to be seen for what they are: stooges of the US. Deniability for them therefore requires the US to conceal the full extent of its involvement.
In the February 6 Financial Times, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, argued for “A little time… for continued diplomatic efforts aimed at shifting the allegiances of the Sunni merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo.”
As with the war against Libya last year, military intervention would again be justified citing the “responsibility to protect” civilians. But its real aim is regime change to install a Sunni government beholden to Washington, allied with the Gulf States, and hostile to Iran.
A State Department official told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that “the international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria” and that “the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy.”
US Implausibly Denies Role in Israeli Terror Squads
The British Daily Mail published a stunning admission by "US officials" that Israel is indeed funding, training, arming, and working directly with US State Department listed terrorist organization, the People's Mujahedin of Iran, also known as Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK).
The Daily Mail article states, "U.S. officials confirmed today that Israel has been funding and training Iranian dissidents to assassinate nuclear scientists involved in Iran's nuclear program." The article continues by claiming, "Washington insiders confirmed there is a close relationship between Mossad and MEK, according to NBC, but said the U.S. was not involved."
Of course, this is an overt lie, exposed by 3-4 years of documented collaboration between the United States and MEK, including an extensive conspiracy formulated within US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's 2009 "Which Path to Persia?" report, proposing to fully arm, train, and back MEK as it waged a campaign of armed terror against the Iranian people.
In their report, they openly conspire to use what is an admitted terrorist organization as a "US proxy" (emphasis added):
"Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.
The Daily Mail article states, "U.S. officials confirmed today that Israel has been funding and training Iranian dissidents to assassinate nuclear scientists involved in Iran's nuclear program." The article continues by claiming, "Washington insiders confirmed there is a close relationship between Mossad and MEK, according to NBC, but said the U.S. was not involved."
Of course, this is an overt lie, exposed by 3-4 years of documented collaboration between the United States and MEK, including an extensive conspiracy formulated within US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's 2009 "Which Path to Persia?" report, proposing to fully arm, train, and back MEK as it waged a campaign of armed terror against the Iranian people.
In their report, they openly conspire to use what is an admitted terrorist organization as a "US proxy" (emphasis added):
"Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.
Friday, February 10, 2012
As US and Israel dicker over Iran strike, American airlifts strength to the Gulf
As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran's nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile's military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.
The three International Atomic Energy inspectors who spent the last three days of January in Tehran had asked to meet the hitherto invisible head of Iran's nuclear bomb program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 50, a general of the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranians pretended to be deaf. They also kept the inspectors away from any nuclear installations. A senior Obama administration official termed the visit "foot-dragging at best and a disaster at worst."
debkafile's intelligence and military sources note that without talking to Fakhrizadeh or any of the 600 nuclear engineers and scientists working under him, unless one of them defects, there is no way the West can determine what exactly is going on in Iran's nuclear program stands and which installations have been moved to underground facilities.
No one doubts now that advanced centrifuges and stocks of enriched uranium – 3.5 percent and 20 percent grades alike - have been moved to Iran's underground bunker site at Fordo near Qom, which the US administration has claimed its bunker buster bombs cannot reach and which Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak has defined as "a zone of immunity."
In their ongoing argument with Jerusalem, American officials commented crossly this week that "Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly."
Clearly Israel, unlike America, envisions the Iranian "problem" from the narrow viewpoint of potential victim of an Iranian attack. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's strategic team, was quoted as remarking, "It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel."
The three International Atomic Energy inspectors who spent the last three days of January in Tehran had asked to meet the hitherto invisible head of Iran's nuclear bomb program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 50, a general of the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranians pretended to be deaf. They also kept the inspectors away from any nuclear installations. A senior Obama administration official termed the visit "foot-dragging at best and a disaster at worst."
debkafile's intelligence and military sources note that without talking to Fakhrizadeh or any of the 600 nuclear engineers and scientists working under him, unless one of them defects, there is no way the West can determine what exactly is going on in Iran's nuclear program stands and which installations have been moved to underground facilities.
No one doubts now that advanced centrifuges and stocks of enriched uranium – 3.5 percent and 20 percent grades alike - have been moved to Iran's underground bunker site at Fordo near Qom, which the US administration has claimed its bunker buster bombs cannot reach and which Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak has defined as "a zone of immunity."
In their ongoing argument with Jerusalem, American officials commented crossly this week that "Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly."
Clearly Israel, unlike America, envisions the Iranian "problem" from the narrow viewpoint of potential victim of an Iranian attack. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's strategic team, was quoted as remarking, "It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel."
Congress To Holder: Quit
Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign even as the country’s top lawyer dodged questions about his involvement in what many are calling a criminal scheme by the U.S. government to traffic weapons to Mexican drug gangs.
During his testimony, Holder ranted angrily about the alleged “unfairness” of him having to answer questions about why he used bogus documents to conceal the fact that weapons sold in the government gunrunning operation were used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
“Nobody’s been disciplined. Nobody’s been fired,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) told the embattled Holder. “It might be time for you to resign.”
Holder opened his remarks by acknowledging that “Fast and Furious”—the U.S. governmental operation to supply arms to Mexican narco- guerrillas, who are waging veritable war against the governments of Mexico and the United States—was a mistake. However, he claimed it was cooked up by people in his employ and was something he could not personally be held accountable for.
Evidence presented to the committee during five previous hearings shows that Holder lied to Congress about Fast and Furious, claiming it did not exist. Since then, he has changed his tune and also admitted that the Justice Department laundered money for Mexican drug gangs as well.
During his testimony, Holder ranted angrily about the alleged “unfairness” of him having to answer questions about why he used bogus documents to conceal the fact that weapons sold in the government gunrunning operation were used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
“Nobody’s been disciplined. Nobody’s been fired,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) told the embattled Holder. “It might be time for you to resign.”
Holder opened his remarks by acknowledging that “Fast and Furious”—the U.S. governmental operation to supply arms to Mexican narco- guerrillas, who are waging veritable war against the governments of Mexico and the United States—was a mistake. However, he claimed it was cooked up by people in his employ and was something he could not personally be held accountable for.
Evidence presented to the committee during five previous hearings shows that Holder lied to Congress about Fast and Furious, claiming it did not exist. Since then, he has changed his tune and also admitted that the Justice Department laundered money for Mexican drug gangs as well.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
How about an international award for hypocrisy?
In the House of Commons he pronounced Bashar al-Assad’s regime to be “doomed” because there is “no way it can recover its credibility.” That may very well be the case in the long term, but in my view that Hague statement was somewhat naive at the time he made it. For its short to mid-term survival at the time of writing, and unless visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is seeking to engineer Bashar al-Assad’s departure from office in a face-saving way that will protect Russia’s interests, the Syrian regime doesn’t need credibility in the outside world. It needs only enough weapons and the will to go on killing its own people. (That said there can be no doubt that Bashar al-Assad and/or his Alawite generals took the Russian and Chinese vetoes as a green light to escalate the killing. Also to be noted is that Bashar al-Assad was not the only Arab leader to draw a particular conclusion from Mubarak’s downfall. “If our people take to the streets demanding regime change, shoot them!”)
But the particular Hague statement that prompts my suggestion that he be nominated for a Lebon Prize for hypocrisy was this one. By exercising their veto “Russia and China have placed themselves on the wrong side of Arab and international opinion.”
The obvious implication is that it’s not good politics and policy to be on the wrong side of that opinion. Really? Then how do we explain the fact that all the governments of the Western world, led by America, are on the wrong side of it because of their support for the Zionist state of Israel right or wrong – unending occupation, on-going ethnic cleansing and all? There is a one-word answer. Hypocrisy.
The second most obvious nominee for a Lebon Prize for hypocrisy is Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN. In condemning the Russian and Chinese vetoes, she said, “For months this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members.”
Given that for the Security Council has been held hostage for decades by American vetoes to protect Israel from being called to account for its crimes, that Rice statement is – what I can say without resorting to use of the “F” word? – hypocrisy most naked and taken to its highest level
But the particular Hague statement that prompts my suggestion that he be nominated for a Lebon Prize for hypocrisy was this one. By exercising their veto “Russia and China have placed themselves on the wrong side of Arab and international opinion.”
The obvious implication is that it’s not good politics and policy to be on the wrong side of that opinion. Really? Then how do we explain the fact that all the governments of the Western world, led by America, are on the wrong side of it because of their support for the Zionist state of Israel right or wrong – unending occupation, on-going ethnic cleansing and all? There is a one-word answer. Hypocrisy.
The second most obvious nominee for a Lebon Prize for hypocrisy is Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN. In condemning the Russian and Chinese vetoes, she said, “For months this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members.”
Given that for the Security Council has been held hostage for decades by American vetoes to protect Israel from being called to account for its crimes, that Rice statement is – what I can say without resorting to use of the “F” word? – hypocrisy most naked and taken to its highest level
Rebellion, Resistance, Renewal … or War?
Eisenhower’s farewell speech, familiar to many, echoes no more than the contemporary understanding of the embedded industrial, military and political networks of his own era. Those networks have grown, intertwined, and subsumed the policies and actions of the two major political parties in the subsequent decades. Today, as for several past decades, the warfare state benefits whether the elected President of the United States is a Democrat or a Republican.
I think this connectedness of the state, state corporations and appointed and elected warmakers is the only way we can define the term "war." Who can deny that bailed out banks and carmakers, subsidized, taxpayer-nurtured defense, technology, energy, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries are not state corporations? Who would claim today that the incursions of the state into space, into the Internet, and into our backyards, front yards, kitchens, bedrooms, gun cabinets, bank accounts and safe deposit boxes is not a war conducted by the state?
War – its funding, its design, its conduct and pursuit, as Randolph Bourne observed, is always the health of the state. We who resist, rebel, and seek renewal, whether by Jefferson’s blood of patriots or though a new and peaceful understanding of the Constitution, of God, of duty or of humanity – what we do, what we fund, what we design, conduct and pursue is not war.
Because it isn’t war, we may not have a single leader, or any leader at all. We may not raise a large army, nor will we need to field massive and complex weapon systems. The bulk of rebellion and resistance, and even renewal in a community, a state, a country, and even a nation, is silent and hidden. Like a massive iceberg, the resistance, the rebellion and political and social renewal occurs hidden from the state’s view, underneath the substrate, a powerful and indestructible keel.
We use the word "war" too much today, and we fear its "power" perhaps more than we should. Wars are just the wasteful, deadly and destructive spasms of fearful kings and dictators, created largely by the laziness and greed of those who control and drive the overweening state. Conservative and Progressive alike, the so-called left and the presumed right, those who love the Constitution as God’s inspired guidance and those who believe as Lysander Spooner did, that it is no law at all – all of these believers should boldly hold state war in profound contempt.
I think this connectedness of the state, state corporations and appointed and elected warmakers is the only way we can define the term "war." Who can deny that bailed out banks and carmakers, subsidized, taxpayer-nurtured defense, technology, energy, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries are not state corporations? Who would claim today that the incursions of the state into space, into the Internet, and into our backyards, front yards, kitchens, bedrooms, gun cabinets, bank accounts and safe deposit boxes is not a war conducted by the state?
War – its funding, its design, its conduct and pursuit, as Randolph Bourne observed, is always the health of the state. We who resist, rebel, and seek renewal, whether by Jefferson’s blood of patriots or though a new and peaceful understanding of the Constitution, of God, of duty or of humanity – what we do, what we fund, what we design, conduct and pursue is not war.
Because it isn’t war, we may not have a single leader, or any leader at all. We may not raise a large army, nor will we need to field massive and complex weapon systems. The bulk of rebellion and resistance, and even renewal in a community, a state, a country, and even a nation, is silent and hidden. Like a massive iceberg, the resistance, the rebellion and political and social renewal occurs hidden from the state’s view, underneath the substrate, a powerful and indestructible keel.
We use the word "war" too much today, and we fear its "power" perhaps more than we should. Wars are just the wasteful, deadly and destructive spasms of fearful kings and dictators, created largely by the laziness and greed of those who control and drive the overweening state. Conservative and Progressive alike, the so-called left and the presumed right, those who love the Constitution as God’s inspired guidance and those who believe as Lysander Spooner did, that it is no law at all – all of these believers should boldly hold state war in profound contempt.
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