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The Useless War On Gaza
I find it difficult to write about the slaughter in Gaza. I am full of rage, disgusted and at the same time feel unable to do something about it.
The killing we witness has no purpose at all but to prop up a bunch of failed politicians:
It may be harsh to say that hundreds of civilians have died and several hundred wounded purely in the interest of a bunch of politicians too keen on their own political ambitions to consider the consequences. But that is the brutal truth of this conflict.
Either Israel stops its inhumane blockade of Gaza or people there will continue to launch rockets against the towns and cities their parents and grandparents had to flee from. Short of killing all Gazans, there is no other solution and there will be no other outcome.
With its reporters denied access to Gaza, the 'western' media simply repeats Israeli propaganda justifying the unjustifiable. Alan Hart and John Pilger explain (video: part 2, part 3) how this manipulation is done. Also recommended, Mustafa Barghouthi on the Myths of Israeli Victimhood.
The Israeli politicians who started this can not agree on a strategy on how to stop it. That guarantees the failure of what they attempted with their campaign. The longer the conflict goes on, the less effective the propaganda will be. The truth will slip into the media coverage and in the end the international pressure will be for a ceasefire that may well open Gaza's borders.
At least that is what I hope for.
And for now, Obama has about as much authority to assess, manage, direct & project USA policy as the manager of your local Dunkin Donuts.
jony_b_cool, president elect Obama not only has the authority to assess US policy, he is by office obligated to do so. As far as I can tell, Obama was required to pay attention from the moment he got himself elected into senate. And I am under no illusion he didn’t do so back then or isn’t doing so today, to the point that he is getting similar intelligence briefings and updates as outgoing warlord Bush does. Don’t worry, he is assessing ok, what matters and more to the point is what his conclusions are, as they will determine his actions or lack thereof once he is in the white house. Concerning Israel he luckily has given us already an insight into what those conclusions are, he made them abundantly clear.
I want you to know that today I’ll be speaking from my heart, and as a true friend of Israel. And I know that when I visit with AIPAC, I am among friends. Good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever.
Forever!!!
You see, my great-uncle had been a part of the 89th Infantry Division — the first Americans to reach a Nazi concentration camp. They liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, on an April day in 1945….. When the Americans marched in, they discovered huge piles of dead bodies and starving survivors.
He’d be turning in his grave if he saw how his great-nephew is watching with indifference, if not cheering on the assault on Gaza’s residents. But let’s not get distracted by ol’ Nazi stories, but continue our readings of just how much Obama shares Israel’s rotten values.
Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security.
That starts with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage.
I can’t help but feel that Obama sounds as if he’s finished his assessment of Israel’s oppressive regime and their brutal land grab – with every slain Palestinian civilian we are allowed to witness his conclusions.
Now, about his power to manage, direct & project USA policy 20 days out from being given the keys to the WH. I am not sure about the manage & direct part, but in terms of projection he is today already immensely more powerful than lame duck Bush, realistically ever since he was made democratic front runner and leading in the presidential race.
The whole world knows that Obama will have to wait till the official handover in three weeks time before he can factually issue the order to stop any further military aid to Israel. But why is it so hard to imagine Obama giving a press conference as President elect, or just a friggin TV interview, and in it indicating that should the IDF’s onslaught on Gaza continue, then he is going to be cutting any military support. That’ll do. He doesn’t actually have to issue the order, just announcing he irrevocably will do so in 20 days time unless the attacks cease immediately, and the war hounds in IL would feel the leash pulled back so quickly, they’d have sore necks for months.
The fact that the US president elect chooses to remain silent on the daily US manufactured bombardment of helpless people, that he doesn’t utilise the power he already has by implication of being the incoming US leader, tells me that once he gets to hold the sceptre, he won’t be putting an end to Israel’s slaughterhouse policies either. For the world at large I’d imagine this man has turned out to be a massive disappointment, speaking for myself he surely is.
Nothing, absolutely nothing of what Obama has done or said so far gives me the impression that he’d be the man who will have US politicians and ranking militarists prosecuted for the despicable deaths their ego-manic attitudes and actions have caused over the last 8 years, that he is not the man to roll back those draconian laws enacted in the US over the last 7 years. Instead he speaks of the need for more military bases, of how the US has to regain lost ground in its play for world domination (or leadership as he calls it). He openly stated he’d have no problems with US incursions into Pakistan, which in my books constitute an act of war.
With the incoming president being a total failure on such fundamental issues, what am I meant to expect from this man? My guess, not more than what we got from the spineless Democratic congress for the last shameful years. Despite all his efforts to come across as the agent of change, odds are he will not initiate the transformation we are all hanging for – we must do so ourselves.
I empathize with Monolycus sentiment in regards to participating at blogs. For all the effort and time spend on reading and commenting, an equitable amount should be spend on direct actions to counter the global fascist movement. Maybe a thread on how to conjure up meaningful change could be inspiring, and would break up the empire’s endless stream of bad news that are generally the topic at the Moon. As Franklin so nicely put it, Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 4 2009 12:51 utc | 109
@ slothrop. today I read this short piece by Raimondo, which expresses my opinion re. Isr. approximately (not that I am a fan or even know much about him or agree with everything.)
Justin R. anti-war.com
@malooga. OK – and I should *not* post hot headed, be the heat and fury due to horror in Gaza or the mundane roast and sauce needing attention every 5 mins. I will take up my own editorial pen, such as it is.
@ obama discussion. I read somewhere, it stuck, but don’t recall so can’t link, that Obama is the new CEO of USA, Inc.
In short, he is not the Messiah, he is not Hope, Light or Change, those monikers are slogans touted in politics, for the vote.
In the corporate sphere, the slogans, talking points, or recycled principles, fed to the public and participants, have a different tone, flavor, and vocabulary, such as:
turn around, new acquisitions, stream-lining, shareholder value, company image, innovative advertising, sustainable development, ethics above all, horizontal structure, employee input, capital base, competitive work force .. etc.
The political version of this corporate guff is pretty much what Obama has served up between the layers of populism, varying with form: speeches, written texts, the latter very sparse btw. Keeping USA Inc. going means sacrifice *and* bail outs, aggression, bombing, and retrenching, (not spelled out, implicit).
Obama has re-branded the US, and like corp. moguls he will pursue the same old, but with new vigor, viciousness.
He is playing in a new field, quite different from when Bush Junior was (s)elected the first time, Bush discourse then was very traditional, non intervention, American entrepreneurship, toddle along on the old road, etc.
Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 4 2009 19:29 utc | 116
I haven’t been reading this thread for a while and I wanted to point a couple of things out about the Obama CIA thing that occurred to me as I read through the posts.
Firstly I have no evidence of an Obama CIA connection, but I do have to say as a citizen of a couple of amerika’s alleged allies the assertion is completely unsuprising, in fact it is so natural I can’t help but think it is probably true. To obama_fan_boi I must point out that Putin has made no secret of his KGB connection, he was a boss of the KGB and he transferred across, Obama on the other hand if in fact a cia operative, is not a boss, he is just another shit kicker taking orders to best protect the interests of corporate amerika. If he is CIA he will continue to take orders once ensconced in the whitehouse. Putin takes orders from no one.
We ‘allies’ of amerika, are well used to having CIA agents of influence in our governments. As has been discussed here before Tony Bliar didn’t just happen, he was given the job of leader of the (until his appearance) avowedly socialist english labour party following the sudden death of leader John Smith. That happened right before an election which the Tories had no chance of winning.
A similar thing happened with israel spruiker, friend of amerikan mafia figures, and former australian PM Bob Hawke, who also managed to blackmail and cajole his way into the leader of the opposition gig right before an election “that could have been won by a drover’s dog”, such was the australians antipathy towards the tories at the time. If Hayden (the leader Hawke displaced) had won Australia would have had a leader who was directly connected to the same Whitlam government which the CIS/SIS had unconstitutionally blackmailed and extorted out of office in 1972.
But all of this is old news. The CIA has been riding roughshod over democratic practises throughout the world since 1946, what makes/why do amerikans believe they should be immune from this?
A manchurain candidate style of prez was inevitable as soon as the backlash against Bush became unmanageable as evidenced by the dem landslide in 06.
Obama was the get outta jail free card for amerika’s war criminals.
Although the left likes to imagine CIA and forces of conservatism as some sort of omniscient monolith the reaction to the WTC action in 2001 when amerika’s security services spun out in an hysterical panic for at least three years, which shows us that they are a bunch of scared kids who get their ideas from bad novels and the backs of cereal boxes.
The imperial guardians put their tame african amerikan on the back-burner just in case the peeps reaction to dem obsfucation, refusal to impeach, and betrayal by supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq once in control of Congress, went in favour of an unknown third party candidate. Which doesn’t sound that fantastic, does it?
The net was still seeming to be uncontrollable. Cindy Sheehan and Co had managed what should have been impossible getting publicity for their cause despite a centrally managed media monopoly. Those assholes really didn’t know if they could keep control. Cue Barak Obama, the card up the empire’s sleeve.
If there hadn’t been a single viable candidate in either party who could claim to have opposed the Iraq criminality from the get go, don’t ya think Paul or Kucinich or even a third party candidate may have gotten up such a head of steam that at the least, the dems resolve may have broken, maybe such candidate could be more than a spoiler, and even have actually stood a chance of winning?
Enter the right’s spoiler Barak Obama.
I was in favour of celebrating Obama’s victory something I still stand by but I don’t particularly want to relive that argument.
The simple fact that an unwhite has been made prez even though he doesn’t appear to share the perspective of most other unwhites, is still a cause for celebration. The was and still is ample time for recrimination later.
I have had a version of the ‘plant’ idea for Obama for about a year. previous to that I had thought he was a typical corporate shill, but his own corporate shill. Everything he has did and said gives the plant theory, credence and I would much rather go with the CIA corporate amerika stooge than the alternative, a zionist stooge campaign put together by Rahm Emmanual and his AIPAC cobbers. That really does sound like some nazi ‘world wide jewish conspiracy’ number.
Ask yourself this, given the huge disconnect between what Obama claimed to be up until his nomination and what he has demonstrated himself to be after that point, why would anyone who wasn’t a plant, a stooge, bother?
If Obama keeps going where he’s heading and there is every indication that is precisely what he will do, he is going to end up more hated and reviled than shrub himself. Obama is stupid he must see that, so. Why would anyone do that to them self unless they had an ulterior motive?
Lastly on the Business International thing which Malooga wrote about. I know nothing of that organisation’s history, but I I do know a lot about Fiji’s political history and the notion that Fiji was governed all those years by the old crook Ratu Kamasese Mara is ludicrous. Mara was a plaything of army boss Sitiveni Rabuka who would have sooner jammed a cock up his ass (he is a noted homophobe) than compromised Fiji’s sovereignty in the way that article suggested. Mara was used for his pull with the council of chiefs. Once Rabuka threw out the one man one vote thing, which had allowed a government led by an ethic Indian to win office, he needed another institution to claim support from. That was Fiji’s traditional council of chiefs. That is 100% indigenous and free of the descendants of the Indian indentured labourers which england overpopulated Fiji with then refused to grant citizenship too when Fiji won it’s independence. Ethnic Indians now make up 50% of the population and the odds of that nation lasting much longer before a major ethnic cleansing occurs is pretty much non-existant.
All Fiji’s coups have been racially based and they don’t require any outside assistance since virtually all the army and police are ethnic Fijians, ethnic Indians only make up a tiny proprtion of staff in either institution. CIA stooge Australia, has tried to bully both military dictators out of office. Whatever truth there is in the assertion that business international is a CIA front is undermined by this fantasy about Fiji’s coups being CIA plots.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 6 2009 10:04 utc | 128
Eloquent and informative as always, Did.
j_b_c:
Talk about grasping at straws.
Reverend Wright? Are you kidding? Obama did everything to that poor guy but stab him in the back and cut off his balls. He completely disavowed the relationship. Despite my respect for Wright, Obama ensured that he is completely discredited by the average liberal voter, those who I work with everyday.
Michelle? Her career has been crafted to provide maximum money and minimum controversy. Nevertheless, I’d sure like to be paid over $200,000 (or was that 300) to market a private business to poor people (her job at the hospital), a job which she called “a dream job.” Right. 99% of Americans can dream of ever getting a job like that.
j_b_c, do you really believe that candidates are taught to speak their true feelings off-the-cuff, when big business is investing over $300M in their campaign? Every line is carefully crafted for a particular effect, to appeal to a certain constituency, even the so-called “controversial” ones (which are never very controversial).
Besides, the point is not the depth of Michelle’s insight. The point is that even if Obama were Jesus, he could do nothing to stem the rot.
A new President without an established power base, as JFK had for instance (lol), does not “command” the CIA, the military, the NIA, the FBI, or even his pretorian SS guards, nor the reins of finance and big business, nor even the Democratic Leadership Council. Rather, he takes orders from them — generally in the form of policy crafted by the “think tanks” they fund. Do you think the businessmen who invested $300 Million in Mr. Manchurian want to be told to accept less profit so that the poor can eat? Really?
No, this is all one huge super-tanker of momentum and it cannot turn on a dime if it wanted to. That is how and why states fail, which is what we are seeing happening now.
Bush, courtesy of ex-CIA chief Poppy, had a huge power base. Yet he could not manage to convince the military to attack Iran, something he clearly wanted.
Check out a President’s schedule. They spend 20 or more (sometimes far more) hours/wk giving speeches, interviews, photo ops. That is in addition to the hours spent preparing those speeches and their delivery. I ran a $15M organization with 150 employees. I could never have managed even such a small organization if I had that additional burden. The President is much more of a salesman than anything else.
Obama had been Senator for less two years when he, and plenty of BIG MONEY, decided on his run for the Presidency. That is probably the least amount of experience for a President ever in modern history. Even W. had a better resume! But, miraculously, despite running against a very experienced opponent, that issue never came up! There are 150 living Senators and exs who have far more impressive legislative records. Senator “Being There” was famous for missing every single controversial vote.
Obama ran on two things only, his ability to give a speech and to lie, (Yes, he does lie constantly, usually telling the public what it wants to hear. He spent years being coached by the best of them. He was a poor speechifier just a few years ago.), and his ability to have anyone project what they want to believe — however contradictory — upon him. He was very aware of this unspecificity. I have quoted him on this before.
Anything good Obama does — and there will be some good — will have been vetted in advance by the huge money interests who control the US and most of the world, and will be so that they can stem revolution and keep their hold on power.
Obama will be the same credit to his “race” (a concept which has been completely de-bunked scientifically) as Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Clarence Thomas; as much as Joe Lieberman and Rahm Emmanuel are to theirs, as much as Alberto Gonzalez was to his. The real credits, the Kings, Malcolm X’s, Wellstone’s, and Chavez’s (I’m thinking of the US labor organizer here.) wind up dead in ditches.
If anyone still has any sentimentality for Obama, then read two things:
1) This article by David Icke. Yes, I know that people think he is a neo-fascist nut-case, and he does get it all wrong when he discusses Bill Ayers at the end — knowing nothing about the American left — but up to that point it is nothing short of a brilliant deconstruction of the Obamaphenomena.
2) Obama’s AIPAC speech. You don’t lie to gangsters like Rahm and live to talk about it.
AS Cockburn has observed, it is hard to remember a candidate whose policies were more continuous with the previous administrations than Obamas. Any “change” we might get is less than a buck.
Posted by: Malooga | Jan 6 2009 15:38 utc | 131
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