If the Dem old-guard “leadership” now does tomorrow or in the next few days what it has repeatedly promised not to do, the very integrity, not to mention unity, of the party could crumble. From the beginning the two major infrastructure bills were repeatedly promised to be joined to each other. Now it looks like Nancy, under instructions from Joe, is giving in not just to Manchin and Sinema but to the army of corporate lobbyists. If then the other major now unlinked bill is further gutted then even if eventually passed down the road in emasculated form it may so fracture and demoralize many in the party into a kind of political depression.
If at the same time McAuliffe flames out in Virginia tomorrow, the crumbling of the party may be irreversible leading to mid-term disaster in 12 months and Trump back in the White House in 36 months. Even if McAuliffe squeaks through, it may well be but a stay of of exection for the Dems.
The reality is that the Dem leadership has repeatedly failed since taking control 9 months ago. Not just about the infrastructure bills…also about critically needed and promised voting rights legislation and all the political p.r. battles over taxes, immigration, inflation, mandates, drug prices, police reform. They have repeatedly promised so many things and failed so often that their credibility is shot. Now they are about to push and shove through the House what they promised throughout the year they would not do. The answer should once again be NO, but this time they may have worn down as well as escalated fear of electoral disaster those in their own party. In this context let me underscore what I wrote last week on October 26th:
Once again the old-timers who control the Democratic Party are pleading to be trusted while failing their country and themselves. Be it voting rights, the Supreme Court, taxes, police reform, drugs, suicides, homelessness — and most of all their militarist imperialistic foreign policy — about the only thing they have going for them is how more dangerously awful are those who lead the alternative Party. Stoking fear and political blackmail of us all is their primary claim for support from the Dem establishment. America is stuck with a corrupted from within two-party big-money outdated political system in Washington and financial system in New York, both of which are not up to proper governance for the unraveling oligarchic Democracy to which they are parasitical.
Every time these super manipulative old-timers have insisted on one thing or another for the past months I’ve weighted in with a loud NO. Everything from me daily is at MarkBruzonsky.com/b I take much pride in usually being ahead of the curse, accurately predicting what was happening and why, and advocating what should be the response.
Now looks like a Democratic train wreck ahead — we just don’t know yet how many cars are going to derail and how many casualties are going to result. But of course these aging Dem leaders will nevertheless still proclaim victory and keep begging for our trust and our money — neither of which they deserve, both of which we would be wise to keep to ourselves.
You gotta wonder if Dems have an unconscious death wish or they just keep stumbling bumbling along in ways sure to help Republicans get elected to replace them. Two recent examples on top of all the public wrangling among themselves in Congress:
IMMIGRANT CHILDREN. Is it terribly wrong the way the American government took children away from families at the border? Yes terribly wrong! It was so right when Biden came to office that he said he would rush to find ways to reunite the families. But the idea that these families are going to be paid nearly half a million dollars is totally wrong as well as politically nutty. If the figure being considered would be $50,000 rather than $450,000 that would seem reasonable. But oh no the Dems are so foolishly bumbling once again proposing what they have.
BANK ACCOUNTS. Should more steps be taken to ensure that people properly pay their taxes…especially those in the higher income brackets who have access to accounting tricks and various methods of hiding income and assets. Yes absolutely! But to tell the banks to report to the government transactions of more than $600 and all bank accounts that have more than that amount deposited yearly — which means in effect everyone with a bank account — is going way overboard not to mention also politically crazy. Yes about reporting major cash transactions, suspicious transactions (if we can reasonable define that), and major deposits over $10,000. But oh no the Dems are once again foolishly bumbling in what they proposed.
There see to be so many examples of Biden and those in charge of various departments in his administration not having even common sense, not to mention political sense. Indeed, self-described Bumbling Joe seems to be now competing with Bumbling Dems to see who can outdo each other for the most Bumbling title.
Even if McAuliffe narrowly wins tomorrow in Virginia, and he may not, that may be just a death sentence reprieve at this point. Just a year after Biden took the State by 10%, and after incessantly begging everyone daily for money for his campaign, having been Governor before, and with the VA Governorship in the hands of the Dem Party for many years, for this race to even be close is a major red flag that all the bumbling is taking it’s tole big time.
For Mother Earth this headline this week in the NYPost may well be an understandabe conclusion:
Fiction writers might even try to configure plots where Mother Earth, from which Humans came to be through evolutionary accident or miscalculation, decides to use Pandemic Diseases of various kinds, from HIV to SARS-COVID, to protect itself and to try to rectify that “mistake”.
Humans in turn may soon have to conclude that the ever more lethal weapons of mass destruction they have created, the ecological catastrophe their “advanced civilization” has brought about, and the coming daemons of “Artificial Intelligence”, may all together be a toxic brew of fatal mistakes.
It may take Mother Earth eons in time to clean up and revitalize the planet after humans have destroyed it and themselves. But Mother Earth has lots of time — eons before humans and eons after — whereas humans as individuals have such a short life-span and collectively as a species, in the end, may have come and gone is a cosmic blink of time.
Let’s say the Dem ship with aging Captain Biden and Co-Captain Pelosi — VP Harris still in training and not doing so well — has hit a few political icebergs but is not yet in danger of sinking. If the party can squeak through the Virginia Governor election in a few days and get itself on track to at least pass the gutted social legislation along with the so-called “bi-partisan infrastructure” in the weeks ahead it still has a chance of avoiding sinking even before the mid-terms…now just a year away.
The Dem Captains have another reconstituted plan now — further firm up their “Framework” and shove th long-stalled first bill through the House in the next week, then the second bill weeks later. This super dangerous plan however risks hitting a bigger political iceberg that will in fact sink the party. That would happen if the leadership coerces passage of the first “bi-partisan” bill on its own yet then the second bill does not get passed or is even further gutted.
So….what should the so-called “Progressives” who really are the young enthusiastic base of the party do now? Three-step plan:
Once again they should say NO to the leadership about the current regurgitated plan. They should insist that the greatly diminished social legislation bill be first passed in the Senate so the two infrastructure bills will then be passed together in the House. NO “framework”, no more “good-faith promises”, only a Senate 50 + VP vote. If the “framework” is solid then why should any Senators object now to that vote? After all, the lobbyists using Manchin and Sinema, have already gotten nearly all of what they wanted, especially when it comes to keeping the highest drug prices in the world, preventing long-needed Medicare changes, shamelessly eliminating family leave, other key things now very limited and restricted.
Get Biden to promise that one way or another the critical federal voting rights legislation will get done by the end of this year. With all the hoopla about infrastructure this most critical voting rights legislation seems to have been iced; yet it is crucial in view of the restrictive laws and enhanced jerrymandering from the Republicans. To achieve this legislation it means at minimum altering the out-of-control Senate Filibuster to what it used to be, the far more proper and difficult to use “talking filibuster”, better yet ending it when it comes to critical matters of which voting rights is surely at the top of the list. Doing so will also facilitate the absolutely imperative debt ceiling legislation which the Republicans have also so cynically and super dangerously blocked.
Once the above are taken care of, then playing politics requires the Dems to have to unite and loudly tout their achievements (however emasculated from what was promised and should have been) with an ongoing rally throughout 2022 so both the House and Senate stay under Democratic leadership.
This next decisive round of Washington political gaming restarts next week whatever the results in Virginia. For even if McAuliffe sneaks by its just a stay of execution for the Dems at this point unless they take the steps above and avoid even more threatening political icebergs.
Even before the political drama in Washington yesterday, on previous days I foretold what was coming and why serious people should say NO to the latest ploys of the Dem Party leadership — that’s Joe, Nancy, and Chuck. Previous missives can be easily read day by day at http://markbruzonsky.com/b
Dirty Joe Manchin has been blackmailing his party and selling out his country. The Washington army of corporate lobbyists have groomed and paid their man for some time for this role.
Poor Joe President yesterday made his own blackmail of party and country more explicit yesterday. Either succumb and take the scraps now being offered or the crazy Republicans will cash in and throw us out.
Biden has got a point, yet it is his mishandling of the politics and imagery of his Presidency (and himself) that so badly is causing his public support to keep shrinking. But it’s still blackmail, just phrased and packaged differently and with the usual Biden/Dems exaggerations about what they are accomplishing and deceptions about what they are doing.
Take the “existential Climate crisis”. Now Joe President and the Dem Party want us to believe that the gerry rigged $50 billion yearly for the next 10 years — some $500 billion in total through confusing and exaggerated means — seriously deals with the crisis. What BS! During this same period of time the Pentagon is being allocated (in a minimized rather than exaggerated amount) $8 TRILLION, with much much more, both overtly and covertly, going to the imperialist state’s other national-security institutions of the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, war industries. Indeed just a small percentage reduction for these grossly over-funded entities could pay for ALL the social programs originally promised combined!
Mass killing comes in many forms with many causes. The U.S. is horribly guilty of mass killing in Afghanistan not just for 20 years with bullets, bombs, assassinations, torture, and drone attacks.
Actually now with U.S. troops out, far far more Afghanis are being killed by economic bombs (sanctions), and the purposeful campaign to further destroy Afghanistan by undermining the resurgent government one way or another.
Literally millions of Afghanis are starving right now in the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today; primarily because of U.S. policies past and present.
The Americans brought this one on directly. The Americans also in recent years brought about the destruction of Yemen, this time via key allies Saudi Arabia and UAE. The Americans are also guilty for the destruction of Libya as well as, through more covert means, Syria and Lebanon. Then there is of course Palestine where American complicity and culpability are shamelessly ongoing. And of course the economic blockade of Iran that has brought about tremendous death and hardship and remains quite vicious in coordination with, actually brought about by, Israel. Add Cuba and Venezuela closer to home as well.
Indeed Afghanistan, Yemen, and Lebanon are all in competition now for the title of the greatest humanitarian disaster of modern times. This of course on top of what the Americans did to Libya and then years ago to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
When and how the American Empire will be forced to account for its gross sins of so much death and destruction probably remains in the distant future. Desperately trying to prevent and delay such also explains why the Americans have worked so feverishly for a decade, including today in London, to silence and destroy Julian Assange.
Once again the old-timers who control the Democratic Party are pleading to be trusted while failing their country and themselves. Be it voting rights, the Supreme Court, taxes, police reform, drugs, suicides, homelessness — and most of all their militarist imperialistic foreign policy — about the only thing they have going for them is how more dangerously awful are those who lead the alternative Party. Stoking fear and political blackmail of us all is the primary claim for support from the Dem establishment. America is stuck with a corrupted from within two-party big-money outdated political system in Washington and financial system in New York, both of which are not up to proper governance for the unraveling oligarchic Democracy to which they are parasitical.
Now the two Joes are still making a disingenuous desperate push for tomorrow.
The President Joe says “It’d be very, very positive to get it done before the trip.”
The Dirty on-the-take corporate controlled Joe says the other far more important legislation won’t be ready so just vote on the much more limited “bi-partisan” bill — the one which is totally lacking in so many crucial ways including climate — because “as far as conceptually….I think a framework should be” possible. In other words, accept another non-credible half-hearted trust-me maybe promise.
So absolutely NO to both Poor Joe and Dirty Joe, and their sidekicks Nancy and Chuck, about tomorrow. Let Joe go to Glasgow honestly empty handed rather than deceitfully claiming what America is not actually doing. Let the Virginia governor contest be decided, for even if McAuliffe squeaks through (up in the air it seems) the reality is the Dems are in big trouble even with their own base supporters because of all their wishy-washy displays of weakness and deception on so many things for so many years.
Then in mid-November let it be known that either the combined major legislation will be passed in substantial compliance with the original promises, or no gutted disingenuous version will get through the House. Sure the Republicans with Trump in the lead will gloat. But maybe then the current Congress, still in Democratic hands with a Democratic President to sign off on the historic transformational legislation that is so desperately needed, will realize it is they who have no choice — stand firm or die.
If it comes to be in 48 hours or so that Pelosi (obviously on instructions from Biden and coordinating with Schumer) tries to just pass the limited so-called “Bi-Partisan” infrastructure bill on Wednesday, the day before Biden leaves for his longest trip away from Washington in his already fading Presidency, those who really care about this country and understand what is really going on in Washington should vote NO.
From the start, and repeatedly over and over, the firm promise from all three Democratic Party leaders had always been that the two infrastructure bills would be passed together. The idea that now the Republican-supported bill that has been sitting in the House for months waiting for its companion is going to be passed on its own with “promises” that the already gutted other bill will be passed by the Congress in the future, should not be accepted.
The cut and paste, cobbled together, castrated legislation Biden now wants to pass on Wednesday is riddled with concessions and full of confusing loopholes along with wording and conceptual problems.
So let everything be further delayed at this point until Biden returns from Glasgow COP26. There is nothing in the now fractured legislation anyway that Biden can legitimately claim at Glasgow is a big deal about the climate emergency anyway.
This is no time to submit to the corporate lobbyists and to pretend that what has not been acceptable throughout the year is now suddenly ok after all. If Nancy/Joe/Chuck insist on a vote Wednesday as numerous reports indicate — maybe expecting help from some Republicans to overcome “Progressive Democrats” so they can after all claim “bi-partisanship”, it’s time for a firm stand against such appeasement and cowering with a loud NO vote.
As usual the Dems pretend they are acting in strong and timely ways; but they nearly always fail us. The latest mega-episode is coming this week when Joe and Nancy and Chuck are going to proclaim victory after they are actually flaming down in defeat once again. No voting rights legislation, no overall tax reform, no dentist and other needed Medicare coverage, no action regarding evictions and homelessness, and just about everything else gutted as the army of lobbyists and special interests have gotten their way once again. Not even any critical climate disaster legislation as Biden heads to Glasgow where no doubt he will once again talk big but with dissolving credibility and while carrying a shrinking stick.
Which brings us to the January 6th Committee…already delayed and roadblocked for far too long. Even as we learn more damning details about just how pre-planned and vicious was the attempt to overthrow in a crafty coup the incoming elected government, the investigating Committee once again has failed the country and failed history. One of the key architects of the insurrection, the one who even very publicly screamed the day before that it was going to take place, has defied the House refusing to testify after being subpoenaed.
The House could have and should have instructed the Sergeant at Arms to arrest Steve Bannon. It has that power though rarely used. If that power is not to be used in a case like this then it is a another power the Congress has fully abrogated, as it has with the key power of war and peace.
Bannon should have been brought to a hotel room in Washington near the Capitol and confined in a room until he agreed to testify. This should have been done even as the drawn-out process involving the Justice Department and criminal indictment winds it way through legal labyrinths.
The week ahead is JULIAN ASSANGE WEEK. His own personal future and in many other ways our own is going to be decided in the UK, itself in so many ways an extension of the U.S. and CIA.
The matter of Julian Assange is a critically important issue for journalistic freedom in our world today, as well as the most important pubic matter for restraining the imperial abuse and criminality of the CIA and associated clandestine organizations. Decades ago they tried so hard to put Daniel Ellsberg in prison in order to cower and block American journalism — they almost succeeded. Since then they have found many other ways to infiltrate and control. Now the matter of Julian Assange is more important than any other with tremendous historic global ramifications.
This year the Nobel Committee decided to give the Peace Prize to two journalists. Whatever the merits of the winners the prize clearly should have gone to Julian Assange. But we all know how badly the Nobel has been tarnished in the past and now it has been tarnished once again.
And when it comes to Joe Biden and his Democratic Party, they deserve to be severely condemned for not ending the gross Assange travesty, all the more so as they actually had an easy way out when they came to power earlier this year.
A week ago last Saturday quite a creative event was held in Washington DC at the historic Tabard Inn from where it was broadcast online. It can be watched from the link above. Warning it’s two and a half hours. Additional warning, though the event itself was thoughtfully put together, the video was not — you may want to skip ahead to 1 hour 24 minutes where John Kiriakou speaks followed by Max Blumenthal and Lee Camp. What those three especially have to say is if considerable importance.
Despite the poor video, despite the organizers not making a 15-minute summary highlights as they should have immediately done, despite the incestuousness of the event without the major advertising and promotion campaign that should have been pursued, we all have the obligation to be aware and concerned about this important event last weekend and the upcoming Julian Assange Week. Assange has been personally grossly persecuted, and according to official U.N. documents psychologically tortured for so many years. But the real purpose for destroying Assange is to keep all of us from knowing the horrendous details of what is being done in our name as Americans and to keep other journalists, academics, and experts afraid and under control.
One has to be a little sympathetic to Poor Joe, the President of the United States. He inherited various Missions Impossible, he is in his waning years, his party is seriously confused and divided, as is his country, and because of the other Joe his attempt at a legacy that could have mattered has been blocked.
The other Joe is the Dirty Joe. He’s the Senator funded more than any other by coal and fossil fuel corporations along with their army of lobbyists. He’s also the Senator who along with others in his family and his friends in West Virginia has gotten millions from his state’s dirty climate-destroying coal industry. They will all be getting millions more as Dirty Joe single-handedly blocks what otherwise would have been major badly needed social reforms, including at least some significant steps to deal with the climate destruction his country, his state, and he personally have so much responsibility for bringing about.
Poor Joe has already been forced to delay and gut the transformative legislation he campaigned on and repeatedly promised. Even to get what’s left before he heads to Glasgow for COP26 shortly — to what may be the world’s final chance to seriously deal with the ‘Code Red’ climate emergency — Poor Joe is being severely pressured to even further gut the legislation while desperately pretending otherwise and loosing even more of his credibility in the process.
The end result of these two Joes in Washington is Poor America and Poor World. The U.S. leading role in world affairs is severely damaged. U.S. society at home is severely polarized, fractured, and weakened — the very fabric of the American political and economic systems fraying.
As a result of Poor Joe’s term as President the substantial change he promised will not be, he is now likely to depart with little to show for his lifetime in Washington climbing to the White House. What will be as a result of Poor Joe is an America led by extreme corporate capitalists, no-nothing Christian Evangelicals, and dangerously self-serving corporate lobbyists all fueling as well as fueled by the CIA-Pentagon-Corporate-Imperialist complex.
As Poor Joe quickly fades these dominant forces now seem poised to soon control all branches of the U.S. government. As sad as this will be for most Americans, other than the Power Elite, this situation may very well lead us all to World War III as the American Empire refuses to adjust smartly and gracefully rather turning to lashing out even more viciously and stupidly than in the past.
King Abdullah has hundreds of millions stashed abroad, most in the USA
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is actually tottering. And despite very crafty theatrics otherwise, the hard-line Revionist Zionists who control Israel are salivating. While pretending to support the Hashemite Monarchy and King Abdullah, they actually keep awaiting its and his downfall at which time they will fulfill their long-time goal of declaring that to the east of the Jordan River is the Palestinian Homeland and to the west in total is that of the Jewish State of Israel.
The Israelis have always had to play quite a game with Hashemite Jordan, itself under the control of the CIA and the Americans more and more over the years.
The current King in fact was enthroned by the CIA. With the former King, Hussein, dying at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and his long-time Crown Prince brother expected by all to succeed him, the CIA arranged quite a coup plot.
Using Hussein’s American wife, Princeton grad Lisa Halaby and daughter of the former Chairman of Pan Am, to convince him — with her own backdoor deal that her son would then become Crown Prince — to make a stealth trip to the Jordanian Embassy in Washington.
There without it being known in Jordan Hussein changed the Constitution, doing so in a place considered by international law to be Jordanian territory, to remove the restriction that Kings of Jordan had to be born of Arab mothers. That was not the case with Abdullah, born of a British mother, one of the King’s prior marriages.
Then, all orchestrated by the CIA with Lisa’s connivance, Hussein was rushed back to Jordan where to everyone’s great surprise he removed his brother the Crown Prince from succession, anointed his son Abdullah, and the Constitutional changes became known. Now former Crown Prince Hassan, in that role for 34 years and considered far too independent and not under complete control by the Americans and Israelis, was no more. Abdullah on the other hand was now under complete CIA control and thus, at a discrete distance via the CIA, Israeli supervision.
Then still King Hussein was rushed back to the U.S. where he died less than three weeks later.
The story however is still in midstream. This usually unmentioned background helps explain why the Israelis have to pretend they support the Hashemite Regime and Abdullah, and will not clandestinely help foment a Palestinian take-over in Amman. But that is actually what they hope will eventually happen and which, despite everything, they will very carefully deniably facilitate when the time comes. That is the Israeli version of the “Two-State Solution” and their masked and hidden way of dealing with the “Palestinian problem” and the millions of Palestinian refugees.
I wrote this about Israel/Palestine and about Hamas years ago at the time, the last time, Israel joined with the US, EU, and PA to allow a limited election among Palestinians. In this heavily controlled and manipulated pseudo-election only Palestinian under occupation were allowed to vote, the far greater number in refugee camps and the diaspora were excluded, as were Palestinians living in what has become known as Israel proper. Even so Hamas won control of the Parliament, so Israel, with U.S. connivance, arrested many of those elected and forced the Parliament to close. And though Abbas won the Presidential election, this less than two years after Arafat’s assassination, his control was limited so Israel and the U.S helped his Fatah party attempt a coup in Gaza. That backfired with Hamas taking over Gaza completely and Abbas ever since refusing to hold any elections for more than a decade now realizing he would not win, keeping power because of the money and guns supplied to him by the Israelis and Americans, Here is what I wrote about the situation back then in 2006:
MER – Washington – http://www.MiddleEast.Org – 3 February 2006: Tuesday this week, the day the American President gave his State of the Union speech in the evening, the resistance and liberation movement known as Hamas presented its view in the morning. Writing from Damascus where they have both been in exile the top two political officials in Hamas spoke that day on the editorial pages of The Guardian (UK) and The Washington Post (Washington). Mossad had tried to poison-assassinate Khalid Mish’al some years back in Amman. And the Israelis and Americans had imprisoned Moussa Abu-Marzook before failing to indict him and instead expelling him from the U.S. At that time in 1996, when MER had a weekly TV program, by special arrangement MER extensively interviewed Abu Marzook in the federal detention center near Chinatown in New York about Hamas and the ‘peace process’. We encourage news media organizations to get in touch with MER if interested in that lengthy multi-hour interview full of insights into how the Hamas victory was carefully orchestrated over the past decade. Then last evening in Washington, the solidly establishment World Affairs Council held a kind of emergency forum about the ‘Political Earthquake’ of the Hamas electoral victory in Occupied Palestine. But they seem to have learned little for it was the same old friendly gang of long-time appologist commentators they turned to — all old friends and buddies in fact…Rami Khouri, David Makofsky, and Sibley Telhami — without even having the meager courage at such a critical time to get even one person who could claim to being a real Muslim and a Hamas supporter to speak up. And then they wonder why such things as the Hamas victory surprise them so. Note: To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your email address with MER use MiddleEast.Org/subscribe 2006
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
Khalid Mish’al Tuesday January 31, 2006 – The Guardian
It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.
The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world’s leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.
We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land.
Our message to the US and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain. Our people who gave thousands of martyrs, the millions of refugees who have waited for nearly 60 years to return home and our 9,000 political and war prisoners in Israeli jails have not made those sacrifices in order to settle for close to nothing.
Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory; and Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail. While we are keen on having friendly relations with all nations we shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights. We have seen how other nations, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different, our cause is no less worthy, our determination is no less profound and our patience is no less abundant.
Our message to the Muslim and Arab nations is this: you have a responsibility to stand by your Palestinian brothers and sisters whose sacrifices are made on behalf of all of you. Our people in Palestine should not need to wait for any aid from countries that attach humiliating conditions to every dollar or euro they pay despite their historical and moral responsibility for our plight. We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid and we demand you lift all restrictions on civil society institutions that wish to fundraise for the Palestinian cause.
Our message to the Palestinians is this: our people are not only those who live under siege in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also the millions languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and the millions spread around the world unable to return home. We promise you that nothing in the world will deter us from pursuing our goal of liberation and return. We shall spare no effort to work with all factions and institutions in order to put our Palestinian house in order. Having won the parliamentary elections, our medium-term objective is to reform the PLO in order to revive its role as a true representative of all the Palestinian people, without exception or discrimination.
Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion “the people of the book” who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us – our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people.
We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else’s sins or solve somebody else’s problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.
· Khalid Mish’al is head of the political bureau of Hamas
What Hamas Is Seeking
By Mousa Abu Marzook
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; Washington Post A17: DAMASCUS, Syria — A new era in the struggle for Palestinian liberation is upon us. Through historic fair and free elections, the Palestinian people have spoken.
Accordingly, America’s long-standing tradition of supporting the oppressed’s rights to self-determination should not waver. The United States, the European Union and the rest of the world should welcome the unfolding of the democratic process, and the commitment to aid should not falter. Last week’s victory of the Change and Reform Party in the Palestinian legislative elections signals a new hope for an occupied people.
The results of these elections reflect a need for change from the corruption and intransigence of the past government. Since its creation 10 years ago, the Palestinian Legislative Council has been unsuccessful in addressing the needs of the people. As the occupation solidified its grip under the auspices of “peace agreements,” quality of life deteriorated for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Poverty levels soared, unemployment rates reached uncharted heights and the lack of basic security approached unbearable depths. A grass-roots alternative grew out of the urgency of this situation. Through its legacy of social work and involvement in the needs of the Palestinian people, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) flourished as a positive social force striving for the welfare of all Palestinians. Alleviating the debilitative conditions of occupation, and not an Islamic state, is at the heart of our mandate (with reform and change as its lifeblood).
Despite the pressures of occupation and corrupt self-rule, Palestinian civil society has demonstrated its resilience in the face of repressive conditions. Social institutions can now be given new life under a reformed government that embraces the empowerment of the people, facilitates freedoms and protects civil rights.
Our society has always celebrated pluralism in keeping with the unique history and traditions of the Holy Land. In recognizing Judeo-Christian traditions, Muslims nobly vie for and have the greatest incentive and stake in preserving the Holy Land for all three Abrahamic faiths. In addition, fair governance demands that the Palestinian nation be represented in a pluralistic environment. A new breed of Islamic leadership is ready to put into practice faith-based principles in a setting of tolerance and unity.
In that vein, Hamas has pledged transparency in government. Honest leadership will result from the accountability of its public servants. Hamas has elected 15 female legislators poised to play a significant role in public life. The movement has forged genuine and lasting relationships with Christian candidates.
As we embark on a new phase in the struggle to liberate Palestine, we recognize the recent elections as a vote against the failures of the current process. A new “road map” is needed to lead us away from the path of checkpoints and walls and onto the path of freedom and justice. The past decade’s “peace process” has led to a dramatic rise in the expansion of illegal settlements and land confiscation. The realities of occupation include humiliating checkpoints, home demolitions, open-ended administrative detentions, extrajudicial killings and thousands of dead civilians.
The Islamic Resistance Movement was elected to protect the Palestinians from the abuses of occupation, based on its history of sacrifice for the cause of liberty. It would be a mistake to view the collective will of the Palestinian people in electing Hamas in fair and free elections under occupation as a threat. For meaningful dialogue to occur there should be no prejudgments or preconditions. And we do desire dialogue. The terms of the dialogue should be premised on justice, mutual respect and integrity of the parties.
As the Israelis value their own security, Palestinians are entitled to their fundamental rights to live in dignity and security. We ask them to reflect on the peace that our peoples once enjoyed and the protection that Muslims gave the Jewish community worldwide. We will exert good-faith efforts to remove the bitterness that Israel’s occupation has succeeded in creating, alienating a generation of Palestinians. We call on them not to condemn posterity to endless bloodshed and a conflict in which dominance is illusory. There must come a day when we will live together, side by side once again.
The failed policies of the U.S. administration are the result of the inherent contradiction in its position as Israel’s strongest ally and an “honest broker” in the conflict. World nations have condemned the brutal Israeli occupation. For the sake of peace, the United States must abandon its position of isolation and join the rest of the world in calling for an end to the occupation, assuring the Palestinians their right to self-determination.
We appeal to the American people’s sense of fairness to judge this conflict in light of the great thoughts, principles and ideals you hold dear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the democracy you have built. It is not unreasonable to expect America to practice abroad what it preaches at home. We can but sincerely hope that you use your honest judgment and the blessings of ascendancy God has given you to demand an end to the occupation. Meaningful democracy cannot flourish as long as an external force maintains the balance of power. It is the right of all people to pursue their own destiny.
The writer is deputy political bureau chief of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). He has a U.S. doctorate in engineering and was indicted in the United States in 2004 as a co-conspirator on racketeering and money-laundering charges in connection with activities on behalf of Hamas dating to the early 1990s, before the organization was placed on the list of terrorist groups. He was deported to Jordan in 1997.
All societies have ways of selecting their heroes and villains, of rewarding those who serve power and punish those who challenge policies and wrong-doing. The American Empire is particularly advanced at controlling who has real power, how society is socialized and controlled from the individual to the institutional levels. What this means is that often the most knowledgeable, the most expert, and especially the most independent who try to speak up against abuses, corruption, and officially-sanctioned criminality, are marginalized and unheard.
Some years ago I was invited to speak at Morehouse College in Atlanta, often thought of as the premier Black College in our country and the place where Martin Luther King got his start. The event was held in the President’s Dining Room with an elite small group of students and professors. I was the only white person in the room. I had never been to Morehouse or the King Center before. The subject of my talk was: How Did We Get to 9/11 and What Role Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
I was introduced by the Director of Morehouse’s Andrew Young Center for International Affairs. After my talk, when questions were being asked, one of the students mentioned then Secretary of State Colin Powell. My answer included a comment that I thought he was “the whitest black guy in high office in Washington”. Foremost in my mind probably was the role Powell had played lying to the world at the Security Council to justify and to ignite the Iraq invasion and the now endless “War On Terrorism”. I really hadn’t thought this comment through in advance and even as I said it I was rather apprehensive in mid-sentence. But to my surprise there was rather spontaneous laughter, no one spoke up positively about Powell, no one challenged the loaded assessment I had just made.
In death Powell is now being lauded as the “the embodiment of the American dream”. He did indeed serve long and well those who rule his country – what we can for short call the Pentagon-CIA-corporate complex. He did indeed always salute the power elite which is why he was so advanced in life and is now so applauded in death.
These are all reasons he was selected by Bush/Cheney to be their front-man to grossly lie to the world from the highest rostrum, that of the Security Council of the United Nations, bringing on the invasion of Iraq and grafting the War on Terrorism unremovably from American imperialism. These are all the reasons he was chosen to help lead America into such divisions and chaos, for no doubt Powell knew then all along how 9/11 was being used, and in fact brought about, so the U.S. could invade and/or “regime change” seven countries in five years, the orders the Pentagon generals were secretly given at the time. Now upon his individual death there is his culpability in the death of millions, the destruction of countries, the further impoverishment in so many ways of his country.
Contrary to all the accolades being spewed forth by the corporate media for Colin Powell, in so many ways his is not a legacy to be so applauded.
These are not the words of someone with Palestinian or Arab or Muslim connections. These are the words of the son of Israel’s first Foreign Minister who also became Israel second Prime Minister, right after Ben-Gurion. These are the words of someone who has lived in Israel all his long life and been a member of Israel’s combination of FBI and CIA, the Shinbet.
The recent major interview with Yaakov Sharett was not done by some marginal, academic, or foreign publication It was done by and prominently published in Israel’s leading newspaper, Haaretz.
In so many ways, whether it’s politicians, journalists, or academics America is not “the land of the free and home of the brave” as we were all taught to regurgitate from childhood.
Politicians cower to the big money, special interests, and total party discipline. Journalists parrot what their corporate owners and government entities of so many kinds mandate. Academics hold back their true views and expertise fearing troubles and dismissal.
Yesterday citizens watched a violent rape on a Philadelphia commuter train and no one did anything, not even screaming out or calling 911 or pulling the lever to stop the train.
It’s not only the political fabric and economic system of America which is endangered and fragmenting….as well as the health-care system, even before the Pandemic. So too are basic social norms with so many people deciding its better to duck and hide, to be self-absorbed and look the other way, to get a gun and lock themselves at home for fear of what is happening in so many places.
The World Health Organization is rightly screaming that the rush for Booster Covid Shots in the U.S. and Europe is “Immoral and Unfair”. This is true. And if we had potent and empowered international institutions it would not be. The world now has many covid vaccines and some up and coming treatments. What is clearly needed is international coordination for the emergency mass manufacturing and distribution of the different vaccines worldwide.
Add to the words IMMORAL and UNFAIR, STUPID and UNWISE. We know that if covid is allowed to continue to widely spread in some parts of our world the chances of mutations that will defy the current vaccines grows exponentially.
Yes, as a life-long privileged and well-educated American I rushed to get the booster. But doing so doesn’t mean I don’t agree with WHO or that I believe the American government is doing all it can at the same time to provide the vaccines worldwide. In fact it is the US and Europe, where the big pharma lobbyists are in charge, that is largely preventing what the WHO and more than a hundred countries have long called on the world to do — provide the vaccines super efficiently worldwide through whatever means gets the job done most quickly.
In normal times former Mayor Pete, now the Cabinet official in charge of the Transportation Department in the Biden/Dem Party Administration, might get a pass, even applause, for his attention to parenting.
BUT these are not normal times, the country is in a major transportation crisis, the Administration Buttigieg serves in is on the ropes. Pete isn’t breast-feeding his new adopted twins, has a great stay at home partner, and could easily hire help for his home
Yes Pete is now said to be back part-time at the Transporation Department, a position for which he had little training and experience in the first place. But he should have been back full-time weeks ago — in fact in view of the dire situation both economically and politically he should be working lots of overtime!
It’s nice that Buttigieg is a family guy, has new twins, and wants to take care of things in his home. BUT he agreed to take on major government responsibilities to help take care of millions of American homes and millions of American kids and that is his primary responsibility for sure, full time, overtime, and in fact 24/7 until he takes some other job.
There are very basic principles involved here. This is not a matter of whether what Donald Trump says is true or false. It is not a matter of whether he is a dangerous malignant narcissist or some variant of such. It’s not about whether you hate him or love him. It is not a matter of whether he is going to run again for the Presidency. Nor is it a matter of whether he has criminal and civil charges ahead….which he clearly does.
This is a matter of basic principles and values that are supposed to safeguard us all and which we thought distinguished American society with firm Constitutional guarantees.
We have a very evolved Constitutional legal system when it comes to matters relating to freedom of speech and assembly as well as matters relating to public order. We would never allow federal, state, or local government to determine that political or religious person x can speak as he/she wishes yet person y cannot — at least we are not supposed to. We might choose to not listen, to shun, to castigate, to despise, to drown out…but not to ban. If and when any person breaks the established law by expounding or advocating criminal actions then we have a legal system to deal with such excesses and abuses of what are otherwise basic rights.
Accordingly we should not allow private corporations –which have in fact become in many ways more powerful than government in arranging and controlling the public square — to do what we would never tolerate government doing. Nor can we let public opinion and shifting concepts of political correctness determine who can and cannot speak up and on what subjects where and when.
Is it right to be extremely fearful that Donald Trump might come back to the White House along with his dangerous cultish broods who care not for laws and truthfulness? Tremendously so! But we should now be anxiously worrying at the same time that allowing our fears and disdains to push us into justifying erosion of bedrock principles that distinguish our democracy, freedoms that are firmly embedded in the long evolution of legal Constitutional protections that even the most loathsome among us have, may be even more dangerous and consequential to our endangered and eroding Democracy.
When establishment personalities are invited onto the premier corporate network Sunday morning talk shows and use terms like “Death Spiral”, “Constitutional Crisis”, “extreme dangers to Democracy”, “warm up that could next time succeed” (referencing 6 Jan), the country really is in crisis.
When at the same time some airlines are having to cancel half of their flights, container ships are forced to park at sea for weeks unable off-load, there is a great shortage of truck drivers and other workers, home evictions and homeless tent cities are escalating while basic prices are escalating with stagflation…
When at the same time the Congress is hardly able to even agree if and how to keep the government functioning, if and how to pay the national debt, if and how to provide basic services like health care and education, if and how to protect the national health with available vaccines, if and how to allow women to have legal and safe abortions…
When at the same time political, social, and economic divisions and polarization have families and old friends unable and unwilling to even talk with each other….
When at the same time the mililitary-industrial-CIA complex is getting more and more funds, more and more weapons, and told to prepare for multiple wars….
JESUS CHRIST! OMG! Three hundred thousand+ young Catholic kids were sexually molested by many thousands of French Catholic priests since 1950! No doubt more before that. This isn’t conjecture or exaggeration. This is now the finding from an independent investigatory body which had access to official secret records.
It’s not just France. The Catholic church the U.S. and elsewhere is guilty as well…but maybe not on such a magnitude. Even the former Cardinal in Washington DC was expelled from the Church in recent years.
The Catholic church preaches virginity for the young, marriage and sex with only one partner, no abortions, and celibacy for the clergy. And yet look what it is guilty of and has tried to hide and cover-up for so long!
The Catholic church may adhere to Jesus teaching forgiveness, but the rest of don’t have to accept such fallacious teachings from a clergy that has tolerated, condoned, even regularized such transgressions against children. There’s something wrong at the core of Catholic ideology and practice!
In recent days in Switzerland top US and Chinese officials met. This came after a long Biden-initiated call to Xi a few days before trying to convince him to agree to a summit, which he did not. At the swiss meeting the Americans say they got a commitment from Xi to some kind of summit with Biden, likely only online, and with no set date other than sometime this year. How coy!
Assuming the Americans kept secret at these meetings that there are clandestine U.S. military “training” the Taiwanese military, China should be FIRM but NOT precipitously strike American forces without first letting the Americans backtrack in such ways as:
President Xi can now publicly indicate there will be no summit with Biden, virtual or otherwise, as long as there are any American military in Taiwan.
China can let it be known that recall of the Chinese friendship pandas from the Washington National Zoo is likely — leaving the timing and details unsaid at this point. Such symbolism IS important!
Quietly without fanfare China should further reduce dollar holdings of American Treasuries and cut back on buying any more.
Especially because the Biden Presidency is already weak and drifting, Xi should give Biden some room for face-saving by letting him know privately all American military forces must be removed from Taiwan poste haste “or else” — leave that also unspecified at this point.
China should not and cannot accept American military in Taiwan. The Americans have for some years now been violating the basic “One China” policy while nudging Taiwan step-by-step toward “independence” with advanced military means and American protection. Now the time has come for China to say NO! But in doing so we need China to be careful, thoughtful, smart, dignified, and calm — as well as firm — in standing up to the Americans while giving them ways out.
This is the way for the military options already being publicly talked about in China to not have to be further contemplated and implemented.
Biden must have known this was coming. That’s probably why he tried again this week and managed to get the Chinese President to at least agree to some kind of meeting before the end of the year rather than stiffing him again. For today the sensationalist but admittedly influential Drudge Report featured a big Red Headline and Picture that “MARINES ARE IN TAIWAN” referencing a Wall Street Journal article.
Indeed, even as I quickly pen this China’s reaction is already beginning to make new headlines. This is not going to stop. The U.S. is going to have to back off or the Chinese are going to have to further react.
If I were advising President Xi, I’d say give Biden privately at first an ultimatum — 48 hours to remove all U.S. military personal from Taiwan and say so publicly making up some cockimany excuse like blaming it on Trump. At the very least some way to fudge this whole explosive matter is absolutely imperative.
But if the Americans do not comply, my next very symbolic step, but one that would attract much public attention, would be to indicate that unless all American military forces are gone from Taiwan with a pledge never to return within one week China was recalling the friendship Pandas from the Washington National Zoo.
Don’t laugh. Such a step, especially for those who know the history of the Pandas, would send quite a message in addition to getting much chatter.
Then of course if American forces remain in Taiwan more than symbolic steps will be needed and carefully ratcheted up of course. Short of war of course; but carefully designed to make it crystal clear the “One China Policy” is sacrosanct period and no American military interference in Chinese affairs will be tolerated!
Today APN celebrates it’s 40 birthday and does so honoring the memory of the APN decade-long Chairman, Jim Klutznick’s father, Phil Klutznick. I was for many year Phil Klutznick’s assistant including at the time of APN’s founding. I wrote nearly all of his articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and traveled with him to all of his meetings with top Palestinians in many countries as well arranging his official visit to Egypt. So it is very timely today to recall what I wrote five years ago as Jim, Phil’s son, has so tragically become such a self-serving opportunist as well as politically hypocritical “peace process” charlatan. Much worse is the great harm APN has actually done all these years to what could have been a real “peace process” rather than the great Zionist/American deception it has been leading to the “War on Terrorism” and helping bring about a far worse Palestinian situation today than 40 years ago.
PEACE NOW WORSE THAN AIPAC
AIPAC of course is the America Israel Public Affairs Committee — the powerful dominant out-front Israel/Jewish Lobby headquartered in DC with operatives throughout the country in every Congressional district.
APN is Americans for Peace Now headed by Jim Klutznick, prominent member of the wealthy Chicago Jewish cabal that was behind Obama’s election and now champions Hillary.
Which is Worse? Should be an easy question. But it isn’t. It’s taken me years in fact to answer it. I’ve been friends in fact with Jim for a very long time and in recent years spent many hours in private meetings and on the phone with him about Israel, the U.S. and American Jews.
So It hasn’t been easy to reach the answer I have. It hasn’t been easy to recently totally break with and end the friendship with Jim and to tell him bluntly we are in reality political as well as Jewish enemies.
AIPAC is pretty much out there telling us all what they think, what they want, and what they are working with such determination and energy to achieve. They are heavy-handed even cut-throat and they are oh-so-wrong and quite dangerous about so many things. For a decade, years ago now, I was Jim’s father’s assistant when Phil Klutznick was President of the World Jewish Congress — a very different and far more acceptable WJC than the one today btw. Actually Phil was more than that, he was a profound mentor and even in some ways a kind of surrogate father who one day told me privately in hushed tones “AIPAC is a great danger to the Jewish people”.
APN however is the worse for they are extremely hypocritical, unendingly self-serving, and worst of all political/moral cowards. It’s a long long story to reaching this conclusion and this isn’t the place for it. Suffice it to say at this point that behind the smiling liberal disingenuous “peace” mask, APN is a loyal and obedient member of the infamous President Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, just like AIPAC. It is an organization that claims to support peace, the Palestinians and the “Two-State Solution” but in reality it is aligned with what use to be the Labor Party in Israel and pretty much takes its orders from them…the so-called Zionist “moderates” who act as APN’s controllers while gladly taking their money and receiving their awards. After decades of claiming to care about the Palestinians the only few Palestinians who ever want to be involved with APN are the hated and despised Palestinian quislings who are getting money and privileges from the Zionist regime as well as from the American CIA and State Dept.
APN’s current mission/assignment, along with it’s umbrella organization J-Street, is to give “liberal” American Jews a place to safely and easily hang their hat, give their money, and pretend to be something other than sad and weak hypocrites. APN and J-Street are constantly giving awards to themselves and their Israeli Zionist buddies and handlers. They continually work to undermine other Americans — many affiliated with churches and civic groups — who have been trying for many years to stop the U.S. from being in effect Israel’s drug dealer facilitating and making possible all that the “Jewish State” does. They are as well working overtime these days to undermine those far more courageous and principled American Jews and who support BDS against Israel — Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions. Like the “Good Germans” of years past Jim and his friends are in effect following their orders from the powerful Jewish interests both in Israel and the U.S., thus protecting their own wealth, status, and privileges. APN is their vehicle for their own self-aggrandizement and self-deception in fact.
OK, admittedly, just wanted to vent today on things I’ve learned and conclusions I’ve reached. Years ago when I first came to Washington I was in fact the first representative of the World Jewish Congress — remember though, it was then very different from what it is today headed as it was then by both Phil Klutznick and Nahum Goldman. But that’s an even much longer and much more complicated story. Suffice it to say, ironically, that though Goldman had himself helped establish the World Zionist Congress, as well as the World Jewish Congress and the Presidents Conference itself, in his last years, the years I worked with him, he had broken with all of these organizations as they all been taken over by the Israeli Zionist machine of which APN and Jim are now themselves a most dangerous and oh-so-dishonest and tragic part.
Today is the calendar 20 year anniversary when the American Afghan invasion began, less than a month after 9/11. But actually it was planned long before, 9/11 was simply the excuse and theatrics that got the blank war check from the Congress and created the enthusiasm of the American people, media, and institutions. So much so that only one member of Congress even voted no.
Even more important to remember is that the Afghan invasion was always designed to be only the beginning. It was all about a long-determined post-Cold War American imperialism plan, one with the extreme neocons in charge everywhere as well as considerabl support, largely behind the scenes this time, from the omni-present Israel/Jewish lobby.
From the start it was all about leaping from 9/11 to implement a historic New World Order scheme igniting a “War on Terrorism” that was specifically designed to have no end. Only years later it was learned that by this date, 7 October, 20 years ago the Pentagon Generals had already been top secretly briefed to prepare to invade and regime/change, in coordination with the CIA of course, seven key Muslim countries in the next five years.
With this scheme the backdrop, that is of why the Bush/Cheney regime turned down all efforts by the then Afghan Government to voluntarily turned over Osama Bin-Laden to the International Court of Justice as well as all efforts of the Afghan Government to reach an understanding that could have, and should have, prevented what has happened in these awful 20 years.
More and more the American Public Broadcasting System, PBS, masks less and less it’s role as unofficial USA TV. No direct government funding for PBS but it needed. The funding is primarily program sponsored from major corporates, tax-exempt foundations and crafty groups determined to control American news. Great example yesterday. On the much publicized, and rebroadcast a number of times daily, Amanpour and Company hour-long program, there was a very timely feature on China and Taiwan.
Incidentally Christiane Amanpour took over quickly within days a few years back when the long-time flagship PBS Charlie Rose program got abruptly cancelled because of scandals. Incidentally as well the new host being groomed is Biana Golodrina, herself a well-masked charismatic main-stream neocon whose Jewish family emigrated from Russia and who now well serves very well the USG, PBS, and Israel — which is of course why she got the job.
Anyway, back to China/Taiwan. All the blame yesterday for what is happening, with Golodrina in the driver’ seat, was heaped on China — just like the American government does. Not a single mention of the long-standing “One China Policy” I wrote about yesterday, no history at all in fact. No discussion as well of how the US tried to defeat the Communist Party in China, but when itself was defeated helped its Kuomingtang Party ally take over Taiwan. Then for many years the U.S. tried to undo the Chinese Revolution refusing to recognize or even let China be seated in the U.N., insisting Taiwan was China. Not a single mention as well of the growing provocations the U.S. had been making in recent years to sever Taiwan from the “One China” which are responsible for the counter actions Beijing is taking.
The U.S. is already in a kind of default! Just by playing the political games and raising questions about the U.S. debt and the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, the American Congress has brought about a credibility default.
And credibility is actually crucial. Ten years ago, for the first time in history, when the Congress played similar games and didn’t act to raise the “debt ceiling” until two days before financial default, the U.S. international credit rating was lowered. This then increased the interest rate the government has to pay on borrowing funds — which it does with alacrity rather than properly taxing it’s businesses and oligarchs who use their army of lobbyists to further enrich themselves and further impoverish the country. Now the situation is far more dire with “the full faith and credit” of America more in doubt as well as under growing challenge from within as well as without.
This weekend China sent more war planes in the direction of Taiwan than it has ever done before. Yesterday, Monday, it sent even more.
China is reaction to the U.S. creating a Pacific-alliance to “contain” and threaten China, a la what was done in Europe when NATO was originally created to “contain” and threaten the Soviet Union.
But there are major differences; and this time China has more history as well as more power on its side.
Not only has China always understood that the island of Taiwan is a part of China. Indeed the U.S. and most of the world formally and repeatedly has agreed to that reality pledging to adhere to what has been called “The One China Policy”. In recent years however, the U.S. has tried to chip away at this reality, in effect reneging on this basic geo-political understanding which for China is an existential matter. Step-by-step the U.S. has begun arming Taiwan with ever more sophisticated weapons and at the same time treating Taiwan more and more de facto as an independent country. In doing so the U.S. has encouraged the people of Taiwan to think they can in fact defy China and not have to make an accommodation with “the mainland” and “One China”.
Monday
China realizes that the Americans have to be deterred and blocked from the intention to sever Taiwan from China. And Beijing is right about this.
China always remembers that Taiwan came to be separated from the mainland when the civil war faction the Americans strongly supported against “the Communists” was defeated. It was then that the Americans helped the defeated Kuomingtang Party flee to Taiwan. For decades the U.S. insisted the legitimate government of China was in Taipei, not Peking as it was known back then. And a number of times the U.S. almost used nuclear weapons hoping to bring about a counter-revolution in China and reinstall the Kuomingtang.
Finally in the early 1970s the Americans relented leading to Kissinger’s secret visit to “Communist China” which then lead to Nixon’s very public visit. That then lead to the symbolism of China sending friendship Pandas to the Washington National Zoo — something I have previously suggested hey should now be reconsidering.
When US-China relations were established in the 1970s the Chinese insisted that the Americans agree very loudly and publicly to the “One China” Policy. That in turn led to Taiwan being kicked out of the U.N. replaced by the Communist Party of China in Beijing. Ever since China has always insisted in all international forums that there is only one China and Taiwan is not allowed membership or participation. Indeed to this day there is no formal Embassy or Ambassador of Taiwan in Washington nor of the U.S. in Taipei. And quite literally China would never tolerate such a development repeatedly making it very clear that if Taiwan claims independence China will use force and prevent that. That is what in fact China is now demonstrating with the fleets of warplanes in the past few days.
By taking the actions it has, by surrounding China with military bases, by further arming Taiwan and nearby Asian countries against China, by encouraging the people of Taiwan to think that they are an independent country and will be protected by the Americans, it is the U.S. that is dangerously in the wrong. By enlisting Japan, Australia, Korea, and the Philippines in a growing military build-up and alliance against China it is the Americans who are responsible for what is happening. It is the Americans who are pushing the situation toward military confrontation. It is the Americans who are forcing a major military build-up in China including a major expansion of its heretofore limited nuclear arsenal. It is the Americans who are even risking armed confrontation that could all to quickly expand into worldwide nuclear war starting with a loosing battle over Taiwan.
All analogies break down of course because there are significant differences. But what Facebook has in common with big tobacco from the past and opioids more recently, as well as gambling, is the extreme greedy capitalistic business model. Playing on human compulsions is the goal of the corporate titans in order to maximize addiction and in turn to maximize corporate profits at any cost. What’s good for the users, what’s good for society, users be damned.
In the 60s the tobacco companies literally handed out free cigarette starter packs on the streets, targeting kids in high school, especially the most physically vulnerable, young woman. Not that long ago Tobacco Executives actually raised there hands to boldly lie, swearing under oath in unison before the Congress that “Nicotine is not addictive”. Opioid manufacturers, like tobacco, have already been forced into multi-billion dollar settlements, which clever lawyers manipulated to shield all the executives from criminal prosecution with the government accommodating to let them escape prosecution for all the harm and deaths knowingly caused. Gambling of course is known to be addictive behavior hooking and manipulating so many in so many ways.
Facebook from the beginning has been “free”. But actually it came big hidden prices and that’s now becoming more and more evident. One of the first things that should now be done is that Facebook should not be allowed to use all its cash bundles to buy up all competitors. Step 1: Facebook should be required proto to sell off both Whatsapp and Instagram to fully independent entities.
Clearly society needs very serious regulation of the mega monopoly social media platforms…this includes other freebies like Twitter and Tiktok, but also paid companies like Amazon. Regulations are going to be difficult and complex — one size is not going to fit all. But in the past government has been forced to intervene, for instance with telecommunications, and though some problems resulted and still need further fixing the regulations proved quite successful and resulted in considerable public benefits.
The dastardly American plots to assassinate Cuban leaders, to invade the country, to use biological warfare and economic bombs to destroy the economy and foment a U.S. supported counter-revolution, have been going on even before Joe Biden came to Washington as a young Senator.
The Americans have in fact brought about so much misery and death in their quest to re-control Cuba and thus intimidate all countries in the “Americas” that the “Monroe Doctrine” of old and the CIA rule cannot be defied.
Furthermore the American imperialist-corporate oligarch have poured billions in funds and non-stop clandestine revolution training into a veritable army of Florida-based exile Cubans.
This outrageous and unconscionable policy of the U.S. should be been ended long long ago. Obama made a start but succumbed to all the pressures, just as he did on so many other major historic issues, Palestine at the top of that list.
Biden has managed to get our uniform troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years; even while greatly increasing the military and CIA budgets to pivot and reposition for greater conflicts in the Pacific! Our abhorent Cuban policies have been ongoing for more than 60 years; it’s long past time to bring these miserable policies to an end and establish normal and cordial relations with Cuba!
The U.S. does not have official government controlled and directly government funded radio and TV. But it doesn’t need to. When it comes to the big critical issues the corporate networks as well as what is now corporate PBS do the job for them. All the government needs to do is enforce the doctrine of “classified” to make sure really important and damning information does not reach the public. Plus the institutions of the permanent government — the CIA and FBI, as well as the government funded entities like the National Endowments for Democracy, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the U.S. Institute for Peace, as well as corporate and party funded think-tanks like AEI, Brookings — all together provide masked censorship making sure that only acceptable writers, speakers, and talking-heads are regularly heard by the masses.
Take the very popular PBS News Hour where you’re only going to see vetted and let us say kosher issues and spokespersons. It actually begins these days with nearly 2 full minutes of sponsors, some 9 of whom on most nights get their carefully crafted face before the public in 5 to 10 second bites, followed by a long list of foundations and personalities. In such a situation of course you’re not going to really hear from the independent, outspoken, experts who have something important to say other than the carefully scripted messages the corporate and government approved pundits continually spew forth..
Biden inherited the predicaments, so many of them, and the Republicans are exploiting everything regardless of long-term damage to the country, the economy, democracy, and civil society. Indeed the greatest legacy of the Biden Presidency may well become that in just 13 months now the Republicans will own the Congress and in 37 the White House and all three branches of decaying American capitalist democracy.
Biden is being forced by the corporate/military/oligarchs not just to scale-back his attempt to economically reform and buttress American society. He is actually being forced to gut what he vociferously promised and turn the once substantial plan into a castrated skeleton of what it was supposed to be. This will be another major defeat for Bernie Sanders and what are called “the progressives”. It will further seriously divide the Democratic party and demoralize it’s most enthusiastic however reluctant followers — most especially the young, students, liberals. On top of this Biden and his “liberal” neo-cons are actually escalating imperialistic militant policies abroad and even substantially increasingly spending for the Pentagon and CIA beyond the Trump years!
Yesterday may mark the day when all three of the most powerful in official Washington may have realized their roles are headed for termination — for Pelosi in the House and Schumer in the Senate in just 14 months, for Biden in the White House in 38. Of course they are going to desperately try to spin things otherwise. But the disastrous nature of yesterday is rather nakedly visible. Not only have the Repubs out-maneuvered the Dems once again — just as they did to get control of the Supreme Court. So have the oligarchs, the mega corporations, the lobbyists, and the special interests they front for, gotten their way managing to call in their chips with two of the most on-the-take Senators.
First yesterday, after all the “suspense”, at the last minute, the Dems managed to keep the government operating; imagine that, what an accomplishment! “Remarkable thing!” proclaimed Pelosi flaunting the “continuing resolution” for the cameras. But even this is just temporarily for just two more months; then it’s back to the sordid merry-go-round.
Second yesterday, the Dems still could not manage to fund the national debt! Even when they do as they must the “full faith and credit” of the USG is already more in doubt than ever — and this in itself will have it’s own costs with greater interest payments and future financial confusions as a result.
Third yesterday, despite all the promises since he became President, and all the whittling down Biden has already agreed to, his primary signature legislation remains in limbo after repeated delays and repeated promises it would all definitely for sure be passed into law. Now, Biden and the Dem leadership seem to be in the process of gutting it all still further, probably shrinking it into a skeleton of what was supposed to be. Even so, one way or another, Joe, Nancy, and Chuck further down the road will no doubt proclaim victory in defeat; a boring off-key song we’ve heard from them too many times.
Meanwhile, the clock toward 2022 is ticking louder and louder with Trump and his cultish brood of evangelicals, neocons, and no-nothingists salivating at every beat.
Add to yesterday the night night. Joe and Nancy were merrily cheering as the Dems lost the annual baseball game to the Repubs, 13 to 12. When Joe arrived at the stadium he was greeted with a chorus of boos — not very sportsmanlike, but then we’re dealing with the largely prostituted lemming-like American Congress. (Yes there are some glaring exceptions deserving our respect and applause…but far too few). Yet there he was smiling at and loudly talking to everyone around him mask-less as if the Pandemic is no more. There he was in front of the nation sending the very opposite photo signals to the country from what he and the CDC have been endlessly preaching — and this on a day when the covid death count was higher than it has been for quite a long time going back to pre-vaccine days…some 2500+!
What is happening this week in Washington however it turn out will further weaken the Biden Presidency and the Dem Party; the only question is how much. The Dems are being politically and p.r. out-maneuvered by the Republicans despite the country desperately needing what they are proposing and having public opinion backing them.
What is happening will further increase the chances that Pelosi will loose the speakership along with Schumer in the Senate in 14 months, then Biden the White House in 38, giving the extreme Evangelical Neocon Republicans all three branches of the American government and further positioning the country for political and street civil war….especially if Trump makes his comeback.
Politics is the American Capitol is for fewer and fewer what’s essential for the country; it’s only about party cult-like discipline leading to which religious order gets the power, the authority, the positions, and the big money, in the stinking Washington cesspool.
A few days ago Joe Biden took responsibility (so he said) and condemned the horse-riding border police that had chased and tried to block Haitian migrants desperate at the southern border to find asylum in the U.S. “Of course I take responsibility,” he added, “I’m President. It’s horrible… It’s outrageous… I promise you those people will pay… They will be held responsible.”
But when it comes to the hellish Drone attack that killed so many, mostly children, in Kabul a few weeks ago — an attack very carefully planned for many days, an attack repeatedly lied about by the Pentagon, and an attack for which Biden personally gave the shoot order, nada from Joe. He refuses to even speak about what happened, as Commander-In-Chief he refuses to take any responsibility or hold anyone accountable, and he doesn’t order a stop to such attacks which actually are carried out daily but never known as they are “classified” and anyone “leaking” information about the civilians being killed is imprisoned.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in his speech at the United Nations:
“Israel seeks to dominate the region — and seeks to do so under a nuclear umbrella… For the past three decades Israel (and the United States) have spread its carnage and destruction around theMiddleEast, country after country: Lebanon. Iraq. Syria. Yemen. And Gaza. (And Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and beyond)”
Now actually Raisi did not say these words in his speech last week from Tehran. It was the Israeli Prime Minister Naftalli Bennett who spoke these words today in his debut speech from the rostrum of the United Nations. What is changed above is simply substituting Israel for Iran and adding a few words in parentheses.
What Israeli Prime Minister Naftalli Bennett did say:
“Iran seeks to dominate the region — and seeks to do so under a nuclear umbrella… For the past three decades Iran has spread its carnage and destruction around the Middle East, country after country: Lebanon. Iraq. Syria. Yemen. And Gaza.”
Bennett, whose country has a vast nuclear and missile arsenal — as well as the most advanced army, air force, navy, and nuclear-armed submarine force in the region — went on to repeatedly threaten Iran. It is Iran in fact which is seriously threatened — as well as under economic bombardment and terrorist assassination attacks — which is understandably racing fast to built up it’s military forces to deter Israel (and the U.S.) from attacking.
The new Afghan government — that’s the one led by the Taliban party that the Americans, Chinese, Russians, Pakistanis, Qataries have all been negotiating with — made a formal request last week to speak to the world from the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly as all other countries can do. The U.N., still largely manipulated and controlled by the U.S., is saying NO you cannot.
What the new Afghan government should do instead is broadcast from Kabul, with the UN flag as well as the new Afghan flag in the background, and maybe a mock marble UN backdrop as well, the same speech to the world it would have and should have given at the UNGA. It should arrange to get the speech broadcast live by the many networks not controlled by the Americans. These include RT, Al-Jazeera, CGTN, Pakistani TV, and others, all located in and financed by countries that were in close contact with the Taliban party before, and now are in close contact with the new Afghanistan Government.
At the last minute Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez changed her vote a few days ago from “nay” to “present” on rewarding Israel with another $1 billion in funding, this on top of the nearly $4 billion lavished on Israel yearly (more than the rest of the world combined).
In the minutes just before the vote closed, AOC, huddling with colleagues on the House floor, was in tears feeling the pressures were so great that she would in the end go on the record essentially abstaining rather than voting no which her “squad” colleagues and 6 other Members of Congress did.
Did Zionism start as Racism or evolve into it? Is Zionism a distinct maybe a unique form of Racism? Is Zionism similar to apartheid of old in South Africa? These are all legitimate questions.
There are many distinguished Israelis in fact who consider today’s Zionism — whatever the different forms it has taken in the past — Racism and Apartheid-like. The most recent such person who I quoted earlier today is the son of Israel’s second Prime Minister who before that was the first Foreign Minister — he himself a former member of the Shinbet. In the past the son of the famous Israeli leader and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens held these views, refused to serve in the Israeli army, and was forced to leave Israel or be imprisoned. Also there have been leading Israeli Generals, artists, playrights, even winners of the prestigious Israel Prize awarded by the Prime Minister, who all have considered Israel’s attitudes and actions towards the Palestinian condemnable, contrary to historical Jewish values, and racist in one way or another.
Yet when national speakers at the U.N. this week raised these questions the U.S. walked out along with Israel. And when members of the Congress this week raised these issues they were, totally falsely, accused of being anti-semites, even though one of them is very much a semite herself of Palestinian origins.
Tragically it is the U.S. which has tolerated and facilitated Israeli racism and apartheid-like conduct by super financing, super arming, and super covering up for The Jewish State. That in fact makes America very much complicitous and responsible.
“Israel was born in sin. I describe myself as a collaborator against my will. I’m a forced collaborator with a criminal country. I’m here, I have nowhere to go. Because of my age I can’t go anywhere. And that bothers me. Every day. This recognition won’t leave me. The recognition that in the end Israel is a country occupying and abusing another people.”
His father was the first Foreign Minister and the second Prime Minister of Israel following Ben-Gurion. He is a former member of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal secret police which is responsible for the occupation of the Palestinian people. Yaakov Sharett is 95, has carried the burden he is expressing now for much of his life; and finally is speaking up. Sharett now considers himself a passionate anti-Zionist believing Israel is morally and politically bankrupt. Furthermore he is encouraging Jewish Israelis to leave Israel as he would himself if he were younger. He is gratified that many of his three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren have already left Israel.
The Democratic leadership in Congress tried to sneak it in at the last moment, literally six hours before the vote on long-prepared vital legislation to keep the government funded, giving Israel an additional $1 billion to further build-up it’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile shield. This amount on top of many billions that previously made the Iron Dome possible; and all this is on top of the nearly $4 billion Israel gets yearly (more than all other countries combined in fact).
“The Progressives” in the Dem Party objected to the sneaky procedure and temporarily got their way, and maybe more important some headlines.
But the Israelis, their powerful Israeli/Jewish/Evangelical Lobby, and the Dem Party leadership, immediately twisted things making the situation even worse. The Israelis have now gotten their additional $1b in a separate vote with just 9 members of the House voting no; thus twisting the situation to their advantage and into one of strength and bi-partisanship.
But even so the issue of billions yearly to Israel has gotten some unexpected notice. The yearly hand-out to Israel should have been greatly cut back if not totally suspended long ago. This was in fact advocated by leading Israelis some 40 years ago, including one of the commanders of the Six-Day War, General Matti Peled, Israel’s most famous poet laureat, Natan Zach, and the former Secretary-General of the Labor Party, Lova Eliav, among others.
If what these leading Israelis and many American Jews had publicly advocated long ago had happened (see JCOME.org) the now dead “Two-State Solution” might have come to be. In effect, the U.S. has long served as Israel’s arms drug dealer making possible rather than curtailing what they have done to the Palestinians. It’s very likely in fact that 9/11 would never have happened if Peled, Zach, and Eliav had been listened to.
It’s also critically important to understand what the IRON DOME and all the billions yearly to Israel, is really all about. Bottom line: It’s an indirect way of further subsidizing the U.S. military-industrial complex. The American tax-payer sends the money to Israel via Congress, the Israelis use the billions to buy American weapons, and the whole situation than twists the oil-gas-rich Arab regimes to buy many more billions in American weapons recycling many of the petrodollars to the U.S. military-industrial complex as well.
The other reason the IRON DOME is so important for the Israelis is in preparation for major regional war. Many times since 9/11 the Israelis have tried to maneuver the U.S. into coordinated policies that could have led to full-scale war with Iran. Many times the Israelis have threatened to find an excuse to start bombing Iran and corner the U.S. into having to join in. The IRON DOME is all about preparing for and making this war more likely because Israel would have a shield to be able to shoot down the many missiles — though most of which are primative — that could be unleashed against Israel from Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Iran.
If Joe Biden really was serious he’d be leading with urgent actions to correlate with his words, to regain his credibility, and to truly demonstrate American leadership at this crucial time in human affairs. He would in fact morph war terminology from military to vital international issues that truly threaten the well-being, even the survival, of the United States of America and our entire world.
He would declare immediate war on Climate Destruction. He would declare that he is taking steps to immediately transfer 15% of the military budget to a new Cabinet Department of Global Climate Sustainability.
He would declare immediate war on Covid internationally as even his latest moves to buy more Pfizer vaccines for the world — so far the U.S. has actually delivered only a quarter of what it has promised — are very insufficiently. He would say he is urgently taking steps with the pharmaceutical companies to arrange for them to license vaccine production in other countries worldwide. And he would immediately direct CDC and NIH to greatly increase working with the WHO and UN to coordinate the distribution of the many vaccines now available, to prepare for possible new vaccine resistant Covid variants, and to prepare for future Pandemics.
He would immediately declare that the U.S. is suspending all further nuclear weapons developments and call for urgent revitalization of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He would challenge by example all current nuclear powers to join in the suspension and take immediate steps to return to the original plan of bringing all nuclear weapons under international supervision with the goal of disarmament from all weapons of mass destruction, which now must include biological, cyber, and space weapons.
He would inform the major “defense” corporations — yes that’s right the military-industrial complex — that he expects them to submit plans within 90 days for converting their production of weapons of war to weapons of peace, weapons to fight climate destruction, pandemic disease, and to build infrastructure in the overall public interest.
His predecessor had lost his mind. Joe Biden has however lost his memory. Listening carefully to his U.N. speech you might think Biden was a newcomer trying to wipe the history slate clean and taking America is some bold new direction.
Biden seems to have forgotten he was for a very long time a powerful Senator, for years in fact Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He enthusiastically voted for the invasions of Iraq and Syria. He voted to give Bush/Cheney carte blanch authority to do whatever they decided they wanted to do, anywhere anyhow to any country any person, if they said they were combatting “terrorism”. Then he was Vice-President for eight years at Obama’s side pursuing all of these same wars and similar policies — the long-experienced last-guy in the room as Obama escalated the wars, the drone killing machines, imprisoning many persons of conscience (more than all previous Presidents combined) who came forward to try to inform the media about all the terribly unconscionable things the Americans were doing in so many places.
This is why Biden’s U.N. words rang so hollow, his reception was not very enthusiastic, too any of his phrases wreaked with hypocrisy and duplicity, and overall he and his bungling team are setting the stage for a mid-term debacle in just 14 months and the return of Trump in 38.
Joe Biden’s big problem with his U.N. address today, and it really is a gargantuan one, is not the words he speaks but the frail credibility he has.
And the problem is not simply his own credibility, it’s that of his party, that of his country, even that of the fractured “democratic” system he continually intones. Bottom line is that so much of what Joe Biden says and preaches he and his country do not practice, his words and substance simply do not correlate with his and his country’s actions. And that’s why there is was so little enthusiasm at the U.N., and a huge undertow of skepticism.
Take one of his closing made to take-away lines, “For the first time in 20 years the U.S. is not at war”. Just the day before there was a major killing drone strike in Syria, a country the U.S. has pushed to multiple forms of civil war attempting failed “regime change”. He said nothing about the major Drone strike he ordered in Kabul killing a family of ten with seven children. In fact there is U.S. killing daily in many countries where Joe Biden is right about one thing, the U.S. is not legally at war. America’s masked armies — those led by CIA Generals, remote controlled killing machines, “contractors”, and proxy forces — remain global far beyond all other countries combined. U.S. weapons sales, super weapons development, expansion of nuclear and space weapons, and global military buildup stoking a worldwide super arms race, now especially in the newly minted “Indo-Pacific”, are all fast escalating since Biden became President.
Then when it comes to climate, where at least the Biden rhetoric and emphasis was substantial, here too the words do not correlate with the deeds. Biden wants us to believe that by raising the dollar amount the U.S will devote to climate to $11 billion he and his country should be applauded. The reality is this amount is about what the U.S. spent monthly for 20 years on the war on Afghanistan.
What Joe Biden should have done is used his U.N. speech to vocally and visibly declare war on the rampant climate destruction his country lead to bring about in the first place; requiring a far far far greater and more urgent resource commitment than he or his country are even contemplating. All the trillions of dollars Biden wants to spend on domestic “infrastructure” will in fact likely sink beneath the looming tidal wave of destruction and death on the way as climate deterioration ravages the planet and the war preparations Biden is championing on land, sea, air, space, and cyber will bring us all even closer to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock.
This term, Blundergate, is merging with the Biden/Harris/Pelosi/Shumer/Blinken Presidency. Now add the latest France/AUKUS bungling to Afghanistan, Immigration, Dreamers, Syria/Lebanon, Germany/Nordstream II, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine, Drone Attacks, Voting Rights, Inflation, National Debt. They’ve tried on Covid but have been outmaneuvered so far by the virus and the constrictions of aging and fraying American democracy.
The biggest tests are coming fast in the next days before this month ends. Biden is on stage at the U.N. today. The rhetoric will be lofty, I’m not so sure about the reception, even less sure about the coherency, believability and follow-through.
But most of all if Biden and the Dem team get side-tracked or even rolled-over in Congress, if his signature infrastructure two-part legislation, most especially the big one, are further whittled away or otherwise minimized or incumbered, that’s it for the Biden Presidency. The mid-term elections are already underway, just 14 months away now.
The Afghan family is right. The Pentagon is wrong. Joe Biden, the Commander-in-Chief, is cowardly wrong and on this matter publicly so far AWOL.
The Afghan family is loudly and articulately refusing the Pentagon’s long in coming “apology” and money “compensation” for the horrible drone attack that killed ten in their family, seven children. The Pentagon in this case, after reportedly using six surveillance drones for many hours, ended up targeting a U.S. NGO contractor with water jugs in his car along with so many children in his family. The surviving family members, denouncing the apology as totally unacceptable, are demanding:
A full and open investigation, no more lies and coverups tolerated.
Those responsible must be held accountable and if warranted criminally responsible
What was done to their family should never be allowed to happen again, the drone attacks must cease
Other Afghan families who have similarly suffered — and there are many — should now come forward and be heard.
Not only is the family right. This terrible situation should be and could be a turning point for America’s war machine. The reality is this drone strike is actually just one of many thousands the U.S. has conducted in Iraq and Syria and beyond, in addition to Afghanistan. In recent years just in Afghanistan there has been about one such drone strike every hour with some 40% of those killed children.
The result Americans refuse to face is that tens of thousands of civilians and children have been killed by America’s drone high-tech weaponry designed to kill from afar so American military can remain on air-conditioned bases, eating hamburgers, drinking beer, and “playing” video killing games so they are not endangered themselves.
If those who are responsible for what appears to be, at the least, extreme culpable negligence leading to mass death are now held accountable this will go a long way to preventing such atrocious acts in the future.
Of course the Pentagon war machine will continue to lie, deceive, obfuscate, and cover-up. Such extreme war crimes, on top of torture and assassination and secret classified ops, are in fact the modern American way of war. Officers and enlisted military throughout the chain-of-command have been involved and rather than being held accountable have been promoted. The only persons who have been prosecuted and imprisoned are those who have “leaked” their involvement in and knowledge about war crimes to the media; not the crime perpetrators. The latest “whistle-blower” is imprisoned Daniel Hale.*
Unless the Congress asserts its responsibilities and forces a serious investigation resulting in what would probably be criminal charges against some, demotions or severance for others, what should now happen will not happen.
Unless the American media and public so demand this will not happen.
Unless the Commander-In-Chief honestly and dramatically comes forward — in this case he personally set the stage and gave the order to strike — this will not happen.
Here is a sanitized unclassified summary of Daniel Everette Hale now in prison: He is a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst who leaked classified information about drone warfare to the press. In 2009, Hale enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. In 2013, he was assigned to the NSA and the Joint Special Operations Command at Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, where he helped identify targets for assassination. In February 2014, after leaving the Air Force and becoming a contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Hale leaked classified documents that contained details about U.S. kill lists and civilian casualties of drone strikes, and in many cases revealed actions that are serious war crimes.
This time, so much in the glare of media and even Congressional investigation, the Pentagon was forced to admit what it did. Such “mistakes” are actually horrendous crimes. Those military and civilian leaders who are responsible should in fact be prosecuted; at the very least for extreme negligence resulting in mass murder. But of course that will not happen. The U.S. in fact always refuses to hold it’s own culpable perpetrators to account through it’s own legal system; and refuses to even accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, even threatening to “sanction” and block visas for it’s members and investigators.
This time the Americans were forced to publicly confess. But the reality is that what they did a few weeks ago on 29 August they have been doing for 20 years and in many other countries beyond Afghanistan — think Iraq and Syria at the top of the list — with key NATO allies and regional proxies — Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE, Egypt — perpetrating similar crimes with American arms and support in Yemen and Palestine and beyond.
The “War on Terror” which Biden is actually considerably expanding not curtailing is more and more conducted from air-conditioned sites in the U.S. by confused and troubled 20 year-olds playing war games on their computer screens killing tens of thousands — and in more cases then not the dead and maimed for life are in fact civilians and children.
This time the Pentagon has had to confess after trying for weeks to lie, deceive, mislead, and coverup — which is in fact what they succeed in doing in 99% of such cases. Here is what I wrote about this weeks ago on 1 September just days after this latest American drone killings in Kabul:
1 Sept 2021: One thing we know for sure with so many examples over so many years. And that is that we definitely cannot believe the Pentagon and the USG about so many things including mass killings and false flags in countries throughout the world. The latest lies, distortions, and cover-ups come from Kabul in recent days.
Many, maybe in fact most, of the Afghan civilians killed at the airport last Thursday may have been killed by American troops who opened fire into the crowd after the initial suicide attack.
Then a day later an extended Afghan family was killed — at least ten persons, most of them children — when the Americans drone attacked a car they claimed had explosives near the airport. Then the Americans claimed that happened because of a secondary explosion after they hit their target. But Afghans nearby insist there was only one explosion, the one caused by the American drone.
The family that was killed was actually well-known in the area for working with American NGOs for many years and wanting to flee to America, but the U.S. had left them behind. No Afghans were aware of any ISIS persons or vehicles in the area.
There’s a big reason the USG has so relentless prosecuted and persecuted Assange, Manning, Edmonds, Snowden, Kiriakou, Drake, most recently Hale, and all whistleblowers who come forward with damning information about US drone killings of civilians as well as torture, assassination, and so many other atrocities. The Americans know very well they are guilty — but they only prosecute and imprison the whistleblowers, never those who commit and coverup the war crimes. The main American concern is to frighten all others who know what is going on so they will never dare to speak up — and in most cases the USG succeeds.
Maybe China will now start taking some bold symbol ic steps beyond turning down Biden’s attempt to have a public meeting with Xi. When it comes to symbolism they might no longer provide Pandas to the Washington National Zoo. They might also stop buying U.S. treasures and start sending more of their students and business people to other countries like France and yes Russia. They’ve already cut back on the use of English in their school system. They may well further escalate steps to diminish the role of the Dollar in world trade as well as to develop along wwith other countries a counter internet to the one the Americans dominate.
The “Authorization for Use of Military Force” (AUMF) was passed by Congress just days after 9/11. It legally gave the American President “authorization” 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, or harbored such organizations or persons.” No proof of guilt or involvement, no further Congressional debate or hearings, no trials, no limitations, no restrictions, no end date. No need for anything other than a Presidential “determination” — i.e. in reality decisions from the military-industrial-CIA-foreign lobbyists interwoven complex. In essence the American President, Pentagon, and CIA were given by the seriously mislead people of the United States, via the Congress and those who fund and twist its members, unlimited dictatorial powers to ravage the world.
The AUMF created “forever wars”. Wars that are fought with uniformed American and NATO troops, by ununiformed covert CIA operatives, by economic bombs (i.e., “sanctions), by mercenaries and so-called “contractors”, by missiles and drones.
Forever unending unrestrained imperial wars was the purpose of the AUMF which like everything else had been planned in advance. Indeed the attacks on 9/11 plus the associated Anthrax attack on Congress were purposefully carried out and purposefully exploited precisely to achieve this purpose.
So many military and CIA operations in many countries have resulted. This includes blatant violations of U.S. and international laws including horrendous torture at secret black sites, suspension of the core legal principle of habeas corpus, drone killings in the tens of thousands. Indeed in the final year of the Obama Presidency, yes that’s him at the AUMF signing, more than 26,000 bombs were dropped in eleven countries — and this accounts only for those actually acknowledged, not the covert ones.
This is actually what the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is about for much of the world. Not some 3000 Americans killed on that day. Rather more than a million killed, mostly Muslims, millions more seriously injured, millions more made homeless refugees, millions more so-called “displaced”, countries literally destroyed. This even though few of these millions and few of the countries had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. And it’s not over! Iran, which by extension now means Syria and Lebanon — Israel’s primary enemies and countries that have tried to stand up to the American onslaught — are now the major remaining targets.
And all this based on some of the biggest lies and deceptions in history, including a grossly false 9/11 Commission Report that even it’s two co-chairman admitted “was designed to fail” and has been widely discredited as near total fabrication and coverup.
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Mark Bruzonsky 