Another lie on an old topic

So the US is claiming that accusations of genocide in Gaza are just Hamas propaganda.

Really?

I spent about 10 minutes doing web searches around variations of "Israel genocide Gaza" and came up with the following list, which I'm sure isn't complete.

Human Rights Organizations
Amnesty International
B'Tselem
al-Haq, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Human Rights Watch
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Universities/Academics (in a joint statement)
Center for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
International Human Rights Clinic, Boston University School of Law
International Human Rights Clinic, Cornell Law School
Lowenstein Human Rights Project, Yale Law School
University Network for Human Rights

Individuals
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Bernie Sanders
Elana Sztokman - American-born writer living in Israel for the past 30 years
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the situation in Palestine
Itamar Schwartz, Israeli combat soldier who served in Gaza
Josep Borrell, former EU president, former EU foreign policy chief
Yair Golan, former deputy chief of staff of the IDF

14 Nations (in the genocide case against Israel at the World Court)
Belgium
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Cuba
Egypt
Ireland
Spain
Libya
Maldives
Mexico
Nicaragua
Türkiye
South Africa

Genocide Researchers
Dirk Moses, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research
Melanie O'Brien, president, International Association of Genocide Scholars
Omer Bartov, Brown University
Raz Segal, Stockton University, New Jersey
Rutger Bregman, historian
Shmuel Lederman, Open University of Israel
Uğur Ümit Üngör, University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies

Bartov said that there has been a consensus among genocide researchers since the second half of 2024 that this is genocide.

Geez, that Hamas propaganda is damn effective, ain’t it?

Letters, I send letters....

The American Friends Service Committee recently had an on-line letter to Congress. As I usually do in such cases, I re-wrote the text to"personalize" it. This is how it came out.

-

I call on you to demand a cease-fire and humanitarian access in Gaza by endorsing H.Res. 786 “calling for an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine” or a Senate equivalent. 

As part of that, I want you to oppose new military assistance for Israel, including the supplemental funding request under consideration, until there is clear progress toward an ultimate resolution that respects the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.

According to data provided by the AFSC, since October 7, over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed, 40% of them children. Another 10,000 are estimated to be buried under the rubble. Over 2 million people have been displaced from their homes, and over 70% of homes and other structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. 

The on-going Israeli blockade of Gaza, described more than once as "the world's largest outdoor prison," worsened by the intensified lockdown and now compounded by the US ending aid for UNRWA, has lead to shortages of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies. It is estimated that 85% of the population in Gaza is on the verge of famine.

A cease-fire is needed NOW.

The vicious, bloody attack by Hamas on October 7 deserves no defense and will get none from me. But neither will I defend Israel’s actions in Gaza that so far have killed more than 20 times as many Palestinians and which have been found by the International Court of Justice to plausibly amount to genocide

The lesson of October 7 that should be learned is that further military attacks will bring neither peace nor security for Israel or Israelis. Historically, efforts to militarily "stamp out" a group such as Hamas almost invariably fail, leading instead to decades of suffering for both sides - as this one long since has - that only end when the causes of the conflict are meaningfully addressed.

With that in mind, I ask you this:

    - Given that our Declaration of Independence claims the right, even the duty, of an oppressed people to resistance, and
    - given the existence of Israel is based on the world's recognition of the right of a people to a homeland, and
    - given that you are not going to deny Palestinians both the right of resistance and the right to a homeland,

what is it that you propose Palestinians could and should now do to advance the cause of an independent Palestinian state, particularly now that the Israeli government has openly declared it will "never" agree to that?

Note carefully: You cannot say "No terrorism" because I did not ask what they should not do, but what they should. The lack of a practical answer to that question condemns Palestinians to on-going suffering and oppression and Israelis to continued incidents of terrorism

But for the moment, for this instant, here is what is most important: Please, please do what’s right. Call for a cease-fire and humanitarian access - NOW.

-

Some of that, I know, repeats things I have said before. They bear repeating.

End It

Recently, Bernie Sanders released a statement on the war against Gaza followed by an expanded version as a New York Times op-ed a few days later.

On the whole, it was surprisingly good coming from a US politician, even one so avowedly progressive, as it
- included justice for Palestinians an explicit goal,
- called for future aid to Israel to be conditioned on behavior, and
- expressed a commitment to a two-state solution.

I could have wished for a direct and overt call for an immediate end to all military assistance to Israel until an actual agreement is reached, but I'll take what I can get.

While I'm sure there are other area of emphasis or even disagreement I could find by going over the statement in detail, I did see two shortcomings I wanted to note.

First, I was quite disappointed in the parts about how Hamas "must be" removed from power and "new Palestinian leadership will be required," which together endorse the Israeli war while claiming to be calling for an end to it. More to the point, it raises a question which demands an answer: If there is a free election in Gaza (which I assume is how such "new leadership" is to be chosen) and Hamas wins, would Israel and the US accept that? Or would they use that as an excuse to do nothing toward justice for Palestinians "so long as the terrorists remain in power?"

Don't ignore the question. It's based in history. After Yassir Arafat died in November 2004, the US and Israel demanded elections among Palestinians for "new leadership." Those came in January 2006 and resulted in Hamas winning seats, leading to months of conflict between Hamas and Fatah and finally, in early 2007, a painfully worked-out coalition government between the two factions - upon which Israel and the US flatly refused to deal with this "terrorist government." That is, they demanded elections but when they didn't like the result, they rejected them even though they knew, they had to know, the outcome would be continued conflict.

Their rejection resulted in the coalition fracturing and renewed civil war, leading in short order to the present situation where Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah controls the West Bank.

So the question stands: Will the US and Israel pledge to support the outcome of any elections for "new leadership" even if they don't like the outcome? Any answer other than "Yes" translates to "You will choose the government we tell you to" and marks such "new leadership" as a mask for continued oppression.

The second shortcoming was a matter of let's call it incomplete comparisons. Sanders writes that Hamas killed about 1200 Israelis, adding that "On a per-capita basis, if Israel had the same population as the United States, that attack would have been the equivalent of nearly 40,000 deaths, more than 10 times the fatalities that we suffered on 9/11."

Which is absolutely true.

However, while he notes the estimate of 12,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, he fails to make the same comparison as before. So let's do that here:

Population of Israel: 9,812,480.
Israelis killed: 1200
That is .012% of the population.

Population of Gaza: 2,375,259
Palestinians killed: 12,000
That is .50% of the population.

Population of US: 334,233,854
.012% of US population: 40,110
.50% of US population: 1,671,000

So by the per capita basis Sanders used, the Israeli military has killed FORTY-TWO TIMES as many Palestinians as Palestinian militants killed Israelis.

Forty. Two. Times.

We can properly call what what Hamas did  "slaughter." But then what description can we apply to 42 times as many killed by those who have sworn to continue killing more? Who forced half the population of Gaza to abandon their homes, demanded they run to the south, and then began bombing the very area to which they told them to flee?

End all aid to Israel. Now. Immediately and totally. Because while it can be argued that we may not be able to stay the hangman's hand, we can damn well stop paying for the rope.

064 The Erickson Report for October 27 to November 10, Page 3: The CPC letter

064 The Erickson Report for October 27 to November 10, Page 3: The CPC letter

So. On October 24, 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to the White House that in effect suggested trying to open a conversation with Russia about a potential diplomatic end to its war on Ukraine.

The result was what Politico called a "firestorm" of hostile reaction, one fueled to no small degree by how the Washington Post described the letter, as one urging Blahden to "dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war," calling it a break with official policy and a rupture in the party.

The reaction was swift enough and hostile enough that by that evening caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal was issuing a "clarification" and by the next day it had been withdrawn altogether.

But it wasn't a break; in fact the letter was quite anodyne, including praise and reasserting support for Blahden and insisting that no agreement can be reached without the approval of Ukraine.

So what got it in so much trouble? It comes down to this sentiment, quoting the letter:

[I]f there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine. The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks.

In other words, as The Intercept put it, "That the letter was met with fierce opposition is a measure of the space available for debate among congressional Democrats when it comes to support for the war and how it might be stopped before it turns nuclear: roughly zero."

So invested have the Democratic hierarchy and particularly its hack sycophants become in the glories of war and the shimmering image of outright military defeat of Russia that simply proposing the idea of talking about the possibility of a settlement is beyond he pale.

Indeed, it often seems those hack sycophants are more intested in "decisive victory" through "overwhelming force" than that hierarchy is. Bluntly, I believe that's because they see such a victory as proper retibution for Russia's having, in their minds, been single-handedly responsible for inflicting Tweetie-pie on us.

Among the worst of those hack sycophants is Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos, someone fond of calling people "tankies," a 1950s-era anti-communist smear accusing people of maintaining blind support of the Soviet Union even after its invasion of Hungary in 1954. Referring now to the letter, he charged the signers "are now making common cause with Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, JD Vance, and the rest of the MAGA crowd. Which Ukrainians do these ‘progressives’ want abandoned to mass murder and rape, in their attempt to prop up a flailing Russia?"

Thus in one statement accusing them both of lining up with the worst of the GOPpers and of being on Russia's side in the war - siding with enemies both domestic and foreign.

But there is another point, which is that part of the reason for the "firestorm" is not what was said but who said it, that at least part of the response was the desire of the party hierarchy to smack down party progressives, who have gradually been gaining in influence.

The letter noted that Blahden himself has echoed some of what it said, having repeatedly expressed that only negotiations can ultimately end the conflict, that nuclear war is more imminent now than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, and that he's worried about the fact that Putin "doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.”

What's more, on October 15, Saint Barack said during an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America,” that he is concerned about the fact that, quoting, "lines of communication between the White House and the Kremlin are probably as weak as they have been in a very long time. Even in some of the lowest points of the Cold War, there was still a sense of the ability to pick up a phone and work through diplomatic channels to send clear signals."

And precisely because Putin has so centralized decision-making, quoting again, "us finding ways in which some of that communication can be reestablished would be important."

Which is hardly different from what the letter said, just without the reference to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, just under a week earlier, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an appearance on the ABC show “This Week” that the possibility that Russia might use battlefield nuclear weapons "speaks to the need to ... do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to resolve this thing," adding that it’s up to Secretary of State Blinken and other diplomats “to figure out a way to get both Zelenskyy and Putin to the table.”

Which in some ways goes beyond what the letter said.

Even former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who was one of Obama’s key advisers and a staunch supporter of Ukraine, said he agreed with the idea of making the effort, doubting only it would get very far.

None of those statements - from Biden, from Obama, from Mullen, from McFaul, produced anything like the reaction seen here, in fact hardly any reaction at all beyond some tut-tutting that Biden may have overstated the probability of Putin actually going nuclear.

But no matter. It was members of the CPC that said it and they needed to be smacked down. So effective was that smackdown, so complete the capitulation, that not only was the letter withdrawn, the announcement of the withdrawal included the statement "Every war ends with diplomacy, and this one will too after Ukrainian victory." (That is, of course, my emphasis because it definitely needed to be emphasized.)

And the hierarchy smiles and the hack sycophants go back to scanning for hints of dissent.

Finally something not directly related to the letter and the reaction but something related to Ukraine and something you should be aware of.

Note that Biden said he's worried that Putin "doesn't have a way out." Well, a legitimate question is, once Ukraine didn't collapse immediately upon the invasion, did they ever want him to have one.

First, never forget that the US alone has to date given Ukraine $17.5 billion in direct military aid since the invasion. You can argue that every penny of that was fully justified, but point here is that you can't say we are passive observers of events or merely moral backers of Ukraine. The US and rest of NATO are directly involved. This is not a war of Russia versus Ukraine, it is a proxy war between Russia and NATO, with Ukraine the battlefield on which it is being fought.

With that in mind, recall that back in mid-March, as I noted at the time, there were some negotiations going on between Ukranian and Russian officials with some expressions of optimism coming from both sides. Not that a settlement was imminent but the progress toward one was being made.

Then on April 9, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kyiv, where, according to the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda ("Ukranian Truth"), he brought two simple messages to the capitol:

One: Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with.
Two: Even if  Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements with Putin, NATO is not.

Three days later, Putin said negotiations were at a dead end.

Maybe the timing was coincidental, but the fact that Zelenskyy also lost all interest in negotiations right around the same time, a time, remember, well before Ukraine's recent battleground successes, gives a rather obvious interpretation at least some weight, further bolstered by the fact that at the same time - the first week of April - the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft was reporting that

there are several lines of evidence that suggest that the U.S. is inhibiting a diplomatic solution in Ukraine,

including, significantly, it's total absence from those very March negotiations, lending no assistance, offering no support.

Now, it's not certain the conclusion this points to is true but there is reasonable cause to believe it, a conclusion that creates the image not of the US and NATO causing the war, one of the US inviting or perhaps more accurately baiting Putin to attack - although that would not be unprecedented in US foreign policy - but one of the US and NATO allowing it to continue to take advantage of an opportunity to "pressure" Putin.

But "cause" versus "allow to continue" is somthing I would call a distinction without a difference. It surely makes difference to the homeless and the refugees; it even more surely makes no damn difference at all to the dead.

So we don't know if this idea is true, and in fact you have to hope it's not true because it would be quite heinous if it is.

Then again, war usually is.

 

063 The Erickson Report for October 6 to 19, Page 2: Follow Up on the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh

Back in May, I addressed the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot while she was covering an operation by the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, near the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Now, a new report, the result of a collaboration between the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and a UK-based research agency called Forensic Architecture, has concluded that Abu Akleh was deliberately and repeatedly targeted by Israeli snipers who shot her down despite her being clearly identified as a member of the press.

The new report confirms the findings of half a dozen earlier independent reviews of the incident, which have found that Israeli forces were responsible for Abu Akleh’s killing, including one from the United Nations that described the killing shot as “well aimed.”

But the new report goes beyond those earlier by having produced a detailed digital reconstruction of the shooting based on previously unseen footage recorded by Al Jazeera staff at the scene, open-source video, eyewitness accounts, and a drone survey of the area, and so offers the most conclusive account yet of what happened.

The Israeli response to this issue has been from the beginning both despicable and typical. The first, immediate response, including from then Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, was to say it had to be Palestinian militants. I mean, it just stood to reason. The IDF Chief of Staff, Major General Aviv Kochavi, said it surely was Palestinians because Palestinians shoot "wildly and indiscriminately in every direction" while IDF soldiers "carry out professional and selective firing."

The Israeli Ministry of Defense then produced a video it claimed depicted what it called "Palestinian terrorists" who "likely" killed Abu Akleh - only to have it turn out that the video was shot several hundred yards away in the wrong direction and there was neither any shooting nor any militants around where she was.

Right around that same time, the military declared "there was no need to open a military police investigation" because, they said in effect, there was a lot of shooting and stuff going on and so who knows what really happened.

Oh, but Israel did promise a full investigation, and on September 5 its official review was issued. It actually admitted that Abu Akleh was probably killed by IDF forces, but hey, it was "accidental," so, y'know, hey, they things happen. Get over it.

And so much for Major General Kochavi's "professional and selective firing," as by the official account either that statement is a lie or what happened was a deliberate murder.

The reconstruction in the new report gives every reason to think it was the latter.

It clearly shows that, again, there were neither armed gunners nearby nor were there shots fired in the minutes leading up to Abu Akleh’s killing and during the actual incident the only shots fired came from an IDF position. Moreover, the reconstruction shows that Abu Akleh’s and her colleagues’ “PRESS” insignias were clearly visible from the position of the IDF shooter; that the shooter had a “clear line of fire,” that the pattern of shots indicated “precise aim,” and that the firing continued as the journalists sought shelter. After Abu Akleh was hit, a civilian attempting to provide aid to her was fired upon each time he tried to approach her: When he hid behind a wall, no shots were fired; when he emerged to try to reach Abu Akleh, he was shot at.

So multiple reports had already come to the conclusion that Shireen Abu Akleh - and in case you didn't catch it, she was Palestinian-American; she was an American citizen - Shireen Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. And this new report, with the strongest proof yet, renders the same judgment as the rest.

Sadly, also like the rest, I expect it won't make a damn bit of difference.

There have been calls both in and out of Congress for the US to make its own investigation of what is at the least the extrajudicial killing of one of its citizens, all to no effect. US officials claim to have reviewed the findings of Israeli and Palestinian investigators but failed to reach a “definitive conclusion” as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wistfully says he wishes someone could do an independent investigation - deliberately ignoring the string of such investigations by human rights organizations that have indeed reached a conclusion along with the fact that the US could do its own such independent investigation, but is deterred by the fearful knowledge of what it would be forced to conclude if it did so.

And so it goes on, without consequences, as the US continues to finance Israel's military to the tune of $3.8 billion every year and our policy wobbles between evading responsibility and making excuses for the crimes against human rights that aid helps to enable, also thereby helping to perpetuate a political atmosphere that holds Israel, whatever its policies, whatever its behavior, whatever its crimes, essentially exempt from criticism and speaking the most literal and simple truth, even if carefully expressed, can and if your voice is loud enough to be heard likely will generate charges of antisemitism.

Consider that there is a movement known as BDS. It stands for boycott, divest, and sanction; it's aim is to bring economic and cultural pressure on Israel to change policies, particularly with regard to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories but also Palestinian citizens of Israel.

And the very fact that it calls for such actions, the very fact that it is aimed at Israel, has resulted in it's being labeled antisemitic. Indeed, there are so-called "anti-BDS laws" on the books in 35 states that in some way seek to constrict speech by economically penalizing, through loss of government investment or contracts, any company that might consider joining the boycott.

Shireen Abu Akleh

Consider, too, the recent example of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who, speaking at a Palestine Advocacy Day event on Sept 20, said (and this is an exact quote) “I want you all to know that among progressives, it becomes clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel's apartheid government.”

It took precisely one day for Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to twist Tlaib's words into her having made a declaration that progressive "American Jews need to pass an anti-Zionist litmus test" and "doubled down on her antisemitism," that antisemitism consisting of "slandering Israel as an apartheid state.”

The same day, Rep. Jerry Nadler said “I fundamentally reject the notion that one cannot support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and be a progressive,” a statement even further removed from what Tlaib said than Greenblatt's.

Other members of Congress, including Reps. Ted Deutch, Haley Stevens, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Juan Vargas, and others, made similar public comments, conflating opposing, quote, "Israel's apartheid government" with rejecting Israel's right to exist altogether and declaring that calling Israel an apartheid state is by definition both slander and antisemitic.

Major media outlets, including CNN, picked up and amplified the message: criticize Israel and you will be labeled an antisemite.

Now beyond the fact that Tlaib said nothing referring to Israel's right to exist, only to it's governing policies, the brutal truth is that Israel is an apartheid state. It has found to be one by Human Rights Watch, by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, by Amnesty International, and by United Nations human rights experts.

For clarity, Amnesty International says, quoting,

The crime against humanity of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention, the Rome Statute and customary international law is committed when any inhuman or inhumane act (essentially a serious human rights violation) is perpetrated in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, with the intention to maintain that system.

Apartheid can best be understood as a system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group.

That is apartheid. And that is what leading human rights groups have found Israel is guilty of.

And it won't change, not until there are consequences. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories will continue to see discrimination, continue to see their homes demolished, their lands seized, their human rights denied, until there are consequences. And they will continue to be killed without recourse and that also applies to journalists, bringing us back full circle to where we started, as Abu Akleh was not the first: There have been at least 45 journalists killed by the "professional and selective[ly] firing" IDF since 2000.

Under US policy, those consequences should include a declaration the US that it will no longer use its veto in the Security Council or its influence in the General Assembly to defend or protect Israel from any UN sanctions, that the DOJ takes the position, which it will pursue in court, that all anti-BDS laws are unconstitutional violations of the rights to free speech and free association, and most importantly, there will be no more military aid to or military cooperation with, and no more security guarantees to, Israel until there is a final and just settlement to guarantee Palestinian rights, including the right to statehood.

Those are the consequences that we, that the US, should impose to end the injustice, end the occupation, end the apartheid. But I confess I have no faith that it will happen, at least until the current generations - including my own - die off.

054 The Erickson Report for May 19 to June 1

 

054 The Erickson Report for May 19 to June 1

This time:

- Some corrections

- Guns

- Right-wing violence

- Israel kills journalist

- the economy

- Ukraine

27.6 - Outrage of the Week: war crimes in Yemen

Outrage of the Week: war crimes in Yemen

Now for our other regular feature; this is the Outrage of the Week.

The poorest country in the Middle East is Yemen. And it has been in a bloody civil war since late 2014.

I'm not going to even try to disentangle the history of the war; I will just note that the actual current round of fighting, which is not the first Yemen has seen, broke out when Houthi rebels seized control of Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, in September 2014. A few months later, they seized the presidential compound, forcing President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee the country in late February 2015.

Since then, the fighting between supporters of the Hadi government on the one side - with outside aid coming from the US via drone strikes and from Saudi Arabia via blockades and an air campaign - and the Houthi on the other - with outside aid from Iran - has continued and gotten more vicious over time.

Despite the on-going brutality and suffering, neither side has gained a decisive advantage.

What has happened is that upwards of 10,000 have died in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calls "the forgotten war." The health service there has "completely collapsed" and health workers have been working without pay for more than six months. UNICEF reports that of the total population of 27 million people, an estimated 21.2 million, nearly 80% of the total, need humanitarian assistance of some kind. Half of that number is children.

Of that 27 million, 3.3 million, more than 10 percent of the entire population, have been forced from their homes. Around 17 million people in the country are "food insecure," meaning they don't know from one day to the next if there will be enough food to eat, and 6.8 million of them "one step away from famine." There are 1.5 million malnourished children the country, 370,000 of them severely malnourished.

And over two-thirds of the people of Yemen lack access to safe drinking water, which has in turn lead to the worst outbreak of cholera in the world, an outbreak that is getting worse by almost any measure.

By the end of June, there were nearly 250,000 reported cases of cholera in Yemen, with thousands more every week. Already 1,500 have died. More die every day.

And at this point let's be absolutely clear about two things:

One, as noted in April by Idriss Jazairy, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and international sanctions, it is the air and sea blockade imposed on Yemen by Saudi Arabia that is the biggest single cause of this humanitarian catastrophe. That blockade has restricted and disrupted the import of food, fuel, and medical supplies as well as humanitarian aid. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has been carrying on a campaign of air strikes - over one-third of which have been against civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, markets, and mosques - that has been responsible for the destruction of infrastructure that has lead to the hunger and the cholera epidemic.

That is, Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a pattern of war crimes in Yemen.

And two, this would not be possible without the collusion of the US. We are actively aiding, abetting, and enabling war crimes in Yemen.

We are the ones who sell the Saudis the jets and the bombs.

We are the ones who helped with intelligence.

Sen. Chris Murphy

We are the ones who provided them with precision-guided weapons on the idea that they would help the Saudis to better avoid civilian targets only to, after discovering they were instead being used to better target civilian targets, nonetheless have now approved sending another $500 million worth of those weapons after an attempt in the Senate a couple of weeks ago to block the deal failed by a vote of 53-47.

The aid we give is even more direct: As Sen. Chris Murphy pointedly noted during the debate over that arms deal, "The Saudis simply could not operate this bombing campaign without us." Not only do we sell them the weapons, not only do we stand side by side with them when they are reviewing intelligence about targets, but "their planes can't fly without US refueling capacity."

The Saudi air war, the Saudi war crimes, could not happen without us. We are involved. We are guilty. We are guilty of war crimes in Yemen.

There is a move now in the House to bar the US from refueling Saudi jets. Frankly, while a worthy effort, the chances of that passing Congress and overcoming an inevitable veto are negligible.

So day after day, we are guilty of war crimes in Yemen. And the White House is prepared to encourage that while the Congress, it appears, is prepared to stand by and let it happen.

And that is truly an outrage.

What's Left #27

What's Left
for the week of July 7-13, 2017

Sorry for being late with this. I had some "I really, really, really hate computers" days this week, something with which we call can identify.

This week:

Good News: House Appropriations Committee votes to repeal AUMF
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-panel-approves-amendment-that-would-strip-trumps-war-authorization-powers/
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/340066-lawmakers-applaud-after-panel-approves-language-revoking-war-authority
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/340132-republicans-say-war-authorization-amendment-was-out-of-order

Good News: EPA can't delay methane leak rule
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2017/07/04/DC-federal-appeals-court-blocks-Environmental-Protection-Agency-s-effort-to-suspend-Obama-era-methane-pollution-rule/stories/201707040055

Good News: German parliament votes for same-sex marriage
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/30/534970093/german-lawmakers-approve-same-sex-marriage

Not Good News: Texas Supreme Court says states can deny benefits to same-sex couples
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/lgbt/2017/06/30/texas-supreme-court-rules-gay-couples-notguaranteedspousal-benefits
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/30/texas-supreme-court-ruling-houston-same-sex-marriage-benefits/

Clown Award: TheRump supporters
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/chris-christie-beach/532536/
http://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-president-donald-trump-health-care-republican-gop-were-all-gonna-die-629883?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=most_read&utm_medium=most_read1
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-fans-throw-conniption-fit-after-npr-tweets-out-declaration-independence
http://gizmodo.com/trump-supporters-cry-bias-after-npr-tweets-the-declarat-1796633566

Outrage of the Week: war crimes in Yemen

Thoughts prompted by the Fourth

6.1 - War in Yemen; US begins to back away

War in Yemen; US begins to back away

We're going to start with something that eventually, believe it or not, turns into a sort of good news kinda.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East. It has been in a bloody civil war since late 2014. Even as the world was distracted by Syria, the death and destruction in Yemen mounted.

It is estimated that upwards of 10,000 have died in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calls "the forgotten war." The health service there has "completely collapsed." There are 1.5 million malnourished children the country, 370,000 of them severely malnourished. UNICEF reports that of the total population of 27 million people, an estimated 21.2 million, nearly 80% of the total, need humanitarian assistance of some kind. Half of that number is children.

Of that 27 million, 3.3 million, over 10 percent, have been forced from their homes. Over half are "food insecure," meaning they don't know from one day to the next if there will be enough food to eat. Over two-thirds lack access to safe drinking water, which is connected to a recent outbreak of cholera, with the World Health Organization recording almost 5,500 suspected cases a month ago.

I'm not going to even try to disentangle the history of the war, especially since this is hardly the first internal conflict Yemen has experienced. I will just notice that the actual fighting broke out when Houthi rebels seized control of Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, in September 2014. A few months, later, they seized the presidential compound, forcing President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee the country in late February 2015.

Since then, the fighting between supporters of the Hadi government - with outside aid coming from the US via drone strikes and from Saudi Arabia - and the Houthi - with outside aid from Iran - has continued and gotten more vicious over time. As a quick aside, to show how messy civil wars quickly become, among those supporting the Houthi are supporters of Hadi's predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh - who was forced from office by an uprising supported by the Houthi.

Despite the on-going brutality and suffering, neither side has gained a decisive advantage.

Okay, so what's the sorta kinda good news? Because I'd say we could use some about now.

The Good News is that there is actually - or at least it appears there is actually - a limit to the atrocities our government will tolerate for the sake of "stability" and in the name of "fighting terrorism."

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading what we call so euphemistically call an "air campaign" in Yemen. It has consisted of attacks on hospitals, schools, markets, factories, and other clearly civilian targets. It has consisted of, that is, war crimes.

And now, belatedly and after multiple protests, but finally, the United States has decided to limit its military support to Saudi Arabia's campaign by cutting off supplies of certain weapons.

Just what weapons are involved is not certain, but it involves precision-guided munitions which the US had been supplying under the notion that such weapons can minimize civilian casualties - only to have them used by the Saudis, it appears, to more accurately target civilian and non-combatant targets. It finally got to be too much even for the cold hearts of the US military establishment.

However, the reason this is kinda sorta good news is that while we can be glad of the decision, it not nearly enough. It is not the cut-off in support that folks had hoped for. For example, the US will keep refueling the aircraft involved and will continue some other arms sales to the kingdom, including a $3.5 billion deal for Chinook cargo helicopters, which the US insists would not be part of offensive actions in Yemen.

As a result, William Hartung of the Center for International Policy called the decision to stop supplying precision-guided munitions a "weak signal," while Samah Hadid of Amnesty International said the move "falls far short of what is needed" and Rep. Ted Lieu from California called the decision to continue the re-fueling "completely bizarre."

There is one other point to consider: This is not the US's first hesitant step away from its embrace of Saudi Arabia's war crimes.

In May, Washington suspended sales of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia and in August, the US military began to back away from supporting to Saudi Arabia's campaign, pulling out a planning team that was coordinating with the bombing campaign.

Some have suggested that those moves, and this latest one, are less about any moral judgement on Saudi Arabia, an important regional ally we historically have tried very hard to avoid offending, but are more about concerns among some US officials that by not acting, the United States could be implicated in Saudi Arabia's war crimes.

Whatever the reason and yes, however weak the signal, we still should be glad it happened. Now it's time to pull the plug on all military aid and sales to the repressive regime of Saudi Arabia. Now, that would be Good News.

245.4 - Lovely Little War: Obama sending 200 more troops to Iraq

Lovely Little War: Obama sending 200 more troops to Iraq

And more news from our lovely little war in the Middle East.

The drumbeat to renewed overt US war in Iraq got a bit louder on April 18 with the announcement that Barack "I've got a Nobel Peace Prize and you don't" Obama is sending another 200 US troops to Iraq, troops that will be embedded closer to the front lines.

The additional troops will bring the total to over 4,000 and exceed the previously-declared "cap" on US troops in Iraq, but that presented no problem: Obama simply raised the cap.

There actually are hundreds more US forces in Iraq, but for various reasons they aren't counted in the total. The true number is thought to exceed 5,000.

The new forces are to be embedded as "advisors" - I can never help but remember that embedded "advisors" is how the Indochina War started - at the battalion level, significantly closer to the front lines than the division and brigade levels at which they had been previously.

In addition to the troops, the US is supplying $415 million to the Kurdistan Regional Government and setting up a third long-range rocket artillery unit, and has agreed to employ Apache attack helicopters and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which are truck-mounted rocket launchers, to support Iraqi forces looking to take Mosul back from Daesh.

Of course, this is not nearly enough for some people. Sen. John McCan't, who never saw a war he didn't want to expand and blood he didn't want to shed, dismisses it as "grudging incrementalism" and says it just proves the need for a vastly increased death - excuse me, I mean military - excuse me, I mean "defense" budget.

I keep telling you to "Watch this space." Because it keeps getting filled in, little by little.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/us-sends-200-more-troops-to-help-iraq-fight-islamic-state/
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-18/us-pledges-more-troops-weapons-money-to-fight-isis-in-iraq
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/04/19/mccain-blasts-obama-s-anti-isis-troop-increase-as-grudging-incr/21346367/

225.7 - Outrage of the Week: our expanding lovely little war in Iraq and Syria

Outrage of the Week: our expanding lovely little war in Iraq and Syria

Now for one of our regular features. It's the Outrage of the Week.

And this week, the outrage, as it should be every week, is our lovely little war in Iraq and Syria.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter went before the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 27 to answer questions about the conduct and progress of our lovely little wars. He declared that the US is considering increasing its attacks on ISIS either by supporting our ever-shifting roll of "partners" carrying out such attacks or by "conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground." "We won't hold back," he said.

Let's put that in regular English: The Obama administration, the Amazing Mr. O, our Nobel-Peace-Prize winning Prez, is considering a direct combat role, boots on the ground, for US forces in Iraq and Syria.

I warned you about this. I warned you about this back in June when Obama sent 450 more troops to Iraq to establish a new base in Anbar Province, a base that was considered a model to be replicated elsewhere in the country - more bases, more troops, more "advisers" and all this even though the 3100 US toops already in Iraq at that point were supposed to be a "ceiling" on their numbers. I warned you about Gen. Martin Dempsey, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying the Pentagon "continue[s] to plan for and ensure that [the] option" of moving US troops to the front lines "is available."

I said at that time "Watch this space."

And that space is gradually being filled. Lay the groundwork. Suggest something is "under consideration." We're "considering" this; we're "analyzing" that; we're "thinking about" the other, all while denying you're actually doing it now. Get people so accustomed to the idea that you might do something that by the time you do it, it's an anti-climax.

And now it emerges that the Amazing Mr. O’s most senior national security advisers have recommended measures that would move US troops closer to the front lines in Iraq and Syria, including positioning some number of Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria. Oh we're not doing it, oh no. It's just a "recommendation."

And lie. Lie by commission, lie by omission, lie by playing with words. But lie.

"No combat role. Just advice and assistance." That's what we kept getting told, that's what we keep getting told. But we are in combat, we have been in combat. Leaving aside the fact that all the bombing raids, yes, they are combat, and just looking at the politically-touchier issue of ground combat, yes, US forces have been in combat. The death of Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler in a raid on an ISIS prison brought that fact momentarily to the fore before it was buried under a chorus praising what a "hero" he was. But he was killed in a raid - what part of that is not combat?

Nope, not combat, lied Secretary of War Ashton Carter. Even while openly asserting "We'll do more raids," he weirdly claimed that this "doesn't represent assuming a combat role," apparently with a straight face. "It represents a continuation of our advise-and-assist mission."

Which is true only to the extent that all the other military raids, all the actions carried out by special forces, all the raids that preceded that one - including "several" into Syria since 2011 - and, by his own words, will follow that one, also were in no way combat. Just "advice."

But where this really gets offensive is when we hear things like that from CNN military analyst retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who said "When the people you are training go into combat, you want to go with them to show your support, that's part of the deal."

So the story is "we have no combat role, it's just training." Then when it turns out we are in combat, it's "well, you should have realized all along that training involves combat. Duh."

And all of this, all the lies, the misdirections, the secret wars, are all in pursuit of a foreign policy strategy that for all its supposed nuance and sophistication still embraces the fantasy that military force is the answer to everything - as well as in pursuit of a political strategy that has the overriding intent to avoid any real cost or pain to us that might provoke resistance or resentment or even some reflection on the wisdom of our course, with all the cost and pain to be borne by unseen, unheard, "others."

And as that strategy frays as the humanitarian catastrophe that is the Syrian civil war becomes so bad that those "others" can no longer be relegated to the state of unseen and unheard, the White House and the Pentagon cast about for the change, the shift, the tweak, that will bring the gains that all the other changes, shifts, and tweaks failed to do. But they know, they have to know, they can't not know, that the increase in American military commitment they are considering would not lead to any major changes to the political situations in Iraq and Syria that gave rise to ISIS in the first place.

For all of their "advice," all of their "assistance," all the advice they truly have to offer, all the assistance they truly can give, is more blood, more death, more pain, more suffering, more refugees, more destruction.

It is a political, an ethical, a moral outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/politics/iraq-syria-mideast-hearing/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2087-our-lovely-little-war-new-us-base.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2076-obamas-lovely-little-war-grows.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-weighs-moving-us-troops-closer-to-front-lines-in-syria-iraq/2015/10/26/4ae2f36c-7bec-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/master-sergeant-joshua-wheeler-idd-commando-killed-isis-hostage-rescue-n449876
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/carter-us-to-conduct-more-ground-raids-in-iraq-syria/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-kills-islamic-state-leader-in-syria-raid/2015/05/16/31280b26-fbca-11e4-a13c-193b1241d51a_story.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/iraq-combat-hostage-raid-wheeler-/

197.7 - White House denies Netanyahu's denials

White House denies Netanyahu's denials

The only good thing that has come out of all of this has been the response of the Obama administration. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest dubbed Netanyahu's remark about Arab voters "a pretty transparent effort to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens and their right to participate in their democracy.”

And White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough dismissed NetanYahoo's lame attempt to pull an Emily Latella "never mind" on his campaign pledge to block a Palestinian state, saying “We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace."

Obama is supposed to be "reassessing" the US relationship with Israel, including pulling down the diplomatic cover it has long given Israel at the United Nations as well as becoming less active in protecting Israel in international forums and finding new ways to express opposition to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But here's the thing, another example of when it comes to The Amazing Mr. O how the words soar while the deeds crawl if they move at all: Despite claims that matters have reached what one called "a tipping point," there is no sign yet of any actual changes in policy or much of anything else besides words.

Most importantly, the White House has specifically ruled out any reassessment of what is called "security cooperation" between the US and Israel - which means in point of actual fact the $3 billion in military aid the US gives to Israel every year.

As Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, noted, “The administration is putting everything on the table except security assistance." Rep. Adam Schiff added that "I think the military to military and intelligence cooperation is going to go on no matter who is" prime minister of Israel.
In other words, we're going to keep sending them the big bucks no matter what.

So why would Israel care about the rest of it? Why should they care?

Israel, particularly under governments such as NetanYahoo's, has shown itself time and again entirely willing to ignore the voices of the rest of the world, to ignore the International Court, to ignore the European Union, to ignore the United Nations, to ignore the Security Council, to ignore the United States, has shown itself to be immune to moral and ethical criticism no matter the source, and even now revels in its isolation as if that were a badge of honor and proof of its virtue instead of the judgment of world opinion.

Why, then, should the White House expect NetanYahoo to care about anything except the continued flow of US dollars, the continued flow of weapons, the continued flow of what makes possible his government's ability to simply ignore the rest of the world in pursuit of its own dreams of a modern Israel standing astride the Middle East like a colossus and rivaling King David's domains in the greatest imagined extent of their glory and power?

There is only one change in US policy that might have real impact: An end to so-called "security assistance." An end to military aid. Even that might not sway Israel from its denial of Palestinian rights, might not pause its theft of Palestinian land, might not hinder its on-going illegal annexation of the West Bank. But even if it's true that we may not be able to stay the hangman's hand, we can at least stop paying for the rope.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahu-apologizes-to-arab-voters-for-comment-widely-criticized-as-racist/2015/03/23/93417f1c-d18c-11e4-8b1e-274d670aa9c9_story.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/20/us-usa-israel-idUSKBN0MG2L620150320
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/middleeast/white-house-antagonism-toward-netanyahu-grows.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/politics/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-elections-obama/

Left Side of the Aisle #197

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of March 26 - April 1, 2015

This week:
Good News: X-Files returns
http://time.com/3756557/x-files-return-fox/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

Outrage of the Week: non-existent policy on climate change claims its first victim
http://www.peer.org/
http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2015/03/18/scott%E2%80%99s-climate-change-gag-order-claims-a-victim/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/18/1371746/-FL-DEP-Employee-Suspended-and-Forced-to-Obtain-Medical-Release-for-Mentioning-Climate-Change
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/09/3631465/not-just-florida-censoring-climate-change-talk/
http://fair.org/
http://fair.org/home/network-tv-continues-giving-climate-change-cold-shoulder/

Clown Award: George Zimmerman
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/24/zimmerman-video-trayvon-martin/70362142/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank

Defending my charge that Benjamin Netanyahu is an imperialist
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/un-panel-israeli-settlements-illegal_n_2589394.html
http://www.afsc.org/resource/israel%E2%80%99s-settlement-policy-occupied-palestinian-territory
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/22/map-the-spread-of-israeli-settlements-in-the-west-bank/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-settlements-are-illegal-under-international-law-336507
http://portside.org/2015-02-28/israel%E2%80%99s-peace-now-illegal-settlements-designed-make-two-state-solution-impossible
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/20138694140823658.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/world/middleeast/new-israeli-settlement-plans-draw-swift-condemnation.html

Defending my charge that Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar and a hypocrite
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4634773,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/world/netanyahu-comments-cast-doubt-on-stance-toward-palestinians.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/08/us-israel-palestinians-idUSKBN0M40XB20150308
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31904962
http://time.com/3751454/netanyahu-wants-two-state-solution/

Defending my charge that Benjamin Netanyahu is a racist
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-elections-arabs.html?google_editors_picks=true
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.648028
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahu-apologizes-to-arab-voters-for-comment-widely-criticized-as-racist/2015/03/23/93417f1c-d18c-11e4-8b1e-274d670aa9c9_story.html

White House denies Netanyahu's denials
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahu-apologizes-to-arab-voters-for-comment-widely-criticized-as-racist/2015/03/23/93417f1c-d18c-11e4-8b1e-274d670aa9c9_story.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/20/us-usa-israel-idUSKBN0MG2L620150320
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/world/middleeast/white-house-antagonism-toward-netanyahu-grows.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/politics/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-elections-obama/

194.7 - How to fight Daesh without war

How to fight Daesh without war

Last week I urged the defeat of Barack Obama's request for a new Authority to Use Military Force and for the revocation of the one which he has relied on thus far for his lovely little war.

I also said there are better ways to struggle against the fanaticism of Daesh - that is, ISIS - and I would lay out some.

Put in simplest terms, the key to fighting Daesh is not to try to destroy it but to isolate it and let it shrivel for lack of life support.

To do that, we have to start by realizing what Daesh wants, how it sees itself.

In the minds of the core of Daesh, they are the true revival of the early Islamic caliphate, destined not only to maintain but to expand their theocratic state. That's somewhat oversimplified for the sake of brevity, but not by much.

That extreme view of themselves and their destiny is not only their greatest strength because of the commitment and dedication it can engender, it is also their greatest weakness. For one thing, it makes it impossible for Daesh to find and keep allies, because all must offer total and absolute adherence to its extremist interpretation of Islamic law. And in their view, nobody, not even al-Qaeda, is pure enough.

It also means that once they declared the caliphate and announced that all Muslims around the world owed fealty to that state, their legitimacy came to depend on the continuing viability of their self-declared state. But states, unlike insurgencies, have borders to defend and, more importantly, they have for lack of a better term a sustainable business model to maintain. That is, they must have a functioning internal economy. And there are already signs that the supposed caliphate's "business model" is already starting to fail.

For example, it is already facing a potential food shortage because local farmers did not plant their normal amount of seed, either because they could not access their land, they did not have the proper fertilizers or adequate fuel, or they didn't expect the Islamic State would buy their crops as Baghdad had been doing.

Meanwhile, to sustain itself to this point Daesh has relief mostly on theft, but by now it has pretty much seized what there is to seize while making enemies of states in the region that might have been persuaded to offer support from the outside.

And, perhaps most importantly, building a sustainable economy within this so-called caliphate would require gaining support from within - hearts and minds and all that. But that would require Daesh to loosen its authoritarian rule while courting regional allies by limiting its expansionism, toning down its rhetoric, and reframing its core mission - none of which Daesh is ideologically or theocratically capable of doing without ceasing to be what it is.

Finally, and I have to say I've been saying this almost from the beginning, since last June, we need to realize that most of Deash's support in Iraq comes from disaffected Sunnis who have been first abandoned and then oppressed by the increasingly dictatorial rule of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

With all that in mind, what's the better way? First, realize that bombing Daesh only makes them look like victims in the eyes of too many,  including Sunnis of western Iraq. So stop it.

Next, go after the money supply. Hit Daesh economically. Daesh has been largely self-funded so far, again largely by just taking what it wants, but that can't continue and is already changing.

Third, crack down on the weapons supply, not only by cooperation with regional governments but by ending the flow of US arms to the region.

Fourth, address the political grievances of local populations, particularly the Sunnis. Tell Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that all future US assistance to Iraq in all forms is dependent on a true rapprochement with the Sunnis and mean it.

Finally, provide humanitarian assistance to all who need it, regardless of political affiliation.

That is how you deal with fanaticism: not by destroying it but by dissolving it, not by killing the fanatics but by - if you will - killing the reasons other people would have for joining them.

As the great A. J. Muste said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Exactly the same can be said for justice.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8085197/is-isis-losing
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/20/the-cracks-in-islamic-states-business-plan-are-starting-to-show/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-mideast-crisis-planting-specialreport-idUSKBN0KT0W420150120
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/06/1645-iraq-some-comments.html
http://www.ajmuste.org/

177.5 - Outrage of the Week: Netanyahu says forget the Palestinians

Outrage of the Week: Netanyahu says forget the Palestinians

Now for one of our regular weekly features, the Outrage of the Week.

On September 29, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his speech to the UN General Assembly. To show how seriously he took the event and takes the UN, for the second year in row he arrived after the party was mostly over; after most of the world leaders had given their speeches and left.

The speech itself was described by Barak Ravid of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz as "a tour de force of deja vu," which is a wonderful line, adding, quoting again,

the sound bites and arguments Netanyahu used on Monday have appeared in each of his General Assembly addresses over the last five years.

In fact, Tal Shalev of i24news went down a sort of checklist, going, and this is paraphrased but still an accurate quote, "Prop - check; analogies - check; rhetorical questions - check, pop culture references - check; quote from Isaiah  - check."

Meanwhile most US news accounts, as is pretty typical, consisted for the most part of pull quotes from the speech with little if any analysis and most of that quite shallow.

But this is the reason his speech is the Outrage of the Week, something barely mentioned in mainstream news coverage:

In his speech, Netanyahu never mentioned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. I didn't watch the speech so I can't be completely sure but based on what was in news accounts he never mentioned the West Bank, in fact he never discussed the Palestinians at all except to condemn Hamas.

Instead, he called for an “updated template for peace” in the Middle East based on making regional alliances with Egypt, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia and an update of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative “according to current realities.”

What sort of "realities" is he talking about? Here's one: We think of the West Bank and we think "Palestinian Authority."

But the map shows the reality of the West Bank: The areas in yellow are the only parts of the region under full authority of the Palestinian Authority. In the brownish areas you have Palestinian Authority civil control but the Israeli military is in control of "security," which means actual control, and in the pale blue areas it's all Israeli control, civil and military. The blue dots are Jewish settlements.

In other words, what Netanyahu wants is to back to the "realities" that existed before 1970 when the aspirations of the Palestinians didn't figure in the discussion at all. This is not throwing a two-state solution under the bus, this is not rejecting a Palestinian state, this is wanting to treat the idea as if it never even existed.

I've said before that Netanyahu does not want peace. Now he's not even trying to hide it.

The whole West Bank being part of Israel and filled with Jewish settlements. The Palestinians subjugated and subordinate. Hamas destroyed. That is Benjamin Netanyahu's "template for peace," one we as Americans are expected to endorse to the tune of over $3 billion in military aid every single year.

It is, to say the very least, an outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.618324
http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/45589-140929-analysis-netanyahu-s-2014-un-show
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/netanyahu-un-speech_n_5901574.html
http://www.wrmea.org/2013-october-november/congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-u.s.-direct-aid-to-israel-more-than-$130-billion.html

175.4 - Mr. Obama's War

Mr. Obama's War

I'm not going to spend lots of time on the day-to-day details of our Nobel Peace Prize president's latest celebration of the benefits of bombing. I am, however, going to make some general observations.

The first and most important observation is that we are being stampeded into another war. Or more correctly, into re-expanding a war that never actually ended.

Bombing in Iraq. Bombing in Syria now. Over 1500 so-called "advisers" on the ground in Iraq, "advisers" who have already been in firefights, all amid cries from jackasses like Buck McKeon, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, and BFFs Lindsay Graham and John McCain to "go all in now" because they just can't wait to see the spurting blood amid the shrieks of the wounded writhing in pain because after all why should ISIS have all the fun.

Stampeded by the hawks, stampeded by the ideologues, stampeded by the media, stampeded with cries of "9/11" and "the gates of hell," and "kill them there or they don't kill us here," stampeded into, as we keep on doing, creating even more extremism by seeing threats against the US - that is, against us - that don't actually exist, as neither the FBI nor Homeland Security nor the Pentagon nor the National Counterterrorism Center, none of which have a reputation for downplaying dangers to the Glorious Fatherland, find any cause for alarm. The stampede has become a crashing wave, a tsunami of equal parts ideology, paranoia, bigotry, and bloodlust.

And the Amazing Mr. O rides his surfboard through the tube, the wave breaking over his head as he uses it to go along as he damn well pleases, taking step after step into the Big Muddy. Yes, all that is a horribly mixed jumble of metaphors. It still fits.

Make no mistake, we are being set us up for years of this, years of bombing and death and fear-mongering that will extend far beyond Obama's presidency, setting up his successor, whoever that is, to deal with a volatile and incomplete war against an enemy - terrorism - that, unlike some group of terrorists, can never be defeated, because you can't defeat a tactic, as the scenes from 1984 about a population kept subdued by perpetual reports of perpetual wars perpetually far away become a daily reality. Obama came into office dealing with Bush's Iraq war; the next president will come into office dealing with Obama's Iraq and Syria war.

Some in Congress, bless their day-late-dollar-short little hearts, are mumbling questions about just what is Obama's authority to carry out these attacks even as most of that august body are more concerned about campaigning than about doing their jobs and so will just dump the whole thing until the lame-duck session after the election - assuming they'll actually address the issue of authority even then.

But here's the thing that gets me about this, what especially gets me about this:

More than four years ago, I was asking what is the authority? Where is the authority? What gave Obama the right, the legal right, the legal power, to do what he was doing? "Mr. President," I asked, "just who the hell do you think you are?"

That was in response to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen murdered with a drone strike - put more directly, they dropped a bomb on him - without a pretense of anything a rational person would call due process. But it wasn't the only case.

Three years ago, in the case of Libya, I was making the same demand to know "by what authority." At the time, I said that instead of calling Obama "PHC," for "President Hopey-Changey," as I had been calling him, I would start calling him "GHC" - for Generalissimo Hopey-Changey - because he had apparently decided that the US military is his to use in any way he sees fit, any time he thinks appropriate, anywhere in the world he in his own personal, not-to-be-judged opinion thinks merited. So much so that Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state, told members of Congress that the White House would simply ignore any attempts by Congress to invoke the War Powers Resolution.

The questions beginning to be raised, oh so tentatively, oh so gently, oh so don't-rock-the-boatly, should have been asked four years ago - at least four years ago.

It is so incredibly frustrating to be always expected to deal with these sorts of things after the fact. After four years - and more - of standing by, of watching the bombings, the drone strikes, the assassinations, after four years - and more - of letting all this slide because you didn't want to make a fuss, to now be saying "golly gee whiz, um, do you have any authority," well, there is an old saying about barn doors and horses that applies here.

But be fair, Obama has claimed a basis for his supposed legal authority to not only bomb Iraq but to expand the campaign into Syria. a legal basis that, what did you expect, does not require any Congressional vote. And he knows it's true 'cause gosh darn it, he had "top lawyers" at the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ check it out and what do you know, they told him exactly what he wanted to hear.

And what is that legal authority? What is the Congressional authorization?

Why it's the AUMF, the Authority to Use Military Force that was passed in a rush without significant debate in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The same legislation that over a year ago Obama called "outdated."

The guts of that act is the statement that, quoting,

the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.

So how does ISIS fit that description?

It doesn't.

ISIS was founded in Jordan in 1999 under the name Group of Monotheism and Jihad. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, it became involved in the resistance to the US occupation.

In 2004, to build its prestige as compared to other radical groups in the Iraqi resistance, it declared itself faithful to al-Qaeda and became commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq,even though that was never the actual name.

It later broke off from al-Qaeda, claiming in effect that the older group had gone soft. It's now a rival of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda has even denounced ISIS for the extreme nature of its violence.

So sum it up: ISIS was not involved in 9/11. It did not harbor anyone involved in 9/11. It was not active in Iraq until after our invasion. It had no connection to al-Qaeda until 2004, and now is a bitter rival.

So I ask again: How does ISIS fit the definition of those covered by the AUMF? And I answer again: It doesn't. Obama's claim is crap.

So where is the actual authority to militarily attack ISIS?

There isn't any.

And Obama knows it. Of course he knows it, he's not stupid. Of course he knows it - but he just doesn't care. Because as long as he can make some claim that he has some sort of authority, even if it's transparently bogus, he knows that enough people in Congress will fold like a beat-up accordion.

You've got to realize, this has nothing to do with whether or not you think ISIS is a threat to the US, even though it's not. This has nothing to do with whether or not you think bombing ISIS is a good idea or not or the right thing to do or not and it has nothing to do with whether or not you want to see "boots on the ground" or I should say more boots on the ground.

It has to do with the legal, the Constitutional authority to commit the US to year upon year of war and death and destruction. That is a power no one person should ever have and one the Constitution was originally designed to prevent, but it's one that Obama is claiming for himself and one that the members of Congress - or at least a good number of them - are prepared to passively let him take. It is disgraceful, it is dangerous, it is frightening.

The other day someone asked me what I as a believer in nonviolence would do about a group like ISIS. Now I'm not going to get into a discussion about nonviolence, because that's not relevant here. What is relevant here is that the first thing I said was that I wouldn't be in this situation because I wouldn't have done the things that got us into it.

And maybe, just maybe, if people had started asking "where's the authority" four - or more - years ago, we might not be in this situation now.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/world/Pressure+mounts+ground+troops+Iraq/10198813/story.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/isis-media-iraq-war_n_5761996.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/08/brian-stelter-isis-war-panic_n_5783120.html?cps=gravity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/world/middleeast/extending-a-legacy-of-war.html?google_editors_picks=true
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/11/congress-isis-war-powers_n_5807032.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-just-question.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2011/04/most-important-fact-about-libya-is-not.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2014/09/11/e64774b2-39e0-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Tawhid_wal-Jihad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant