American's Lied to About Israel

J-Street advocates genocide with a smile

By Philip Giraldi

J Street is seductive.  Americans have been bombarded with propaganda about Israel ever since the foundation of the country over sixty years ago.  More recently, the United States has been designated by the media and the chattering classes as the protector of the Jewish state with little regard for those actions undertaken by Tel Aviv that impact negatively on US interests.

This is because the Israel Lobby is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States by far.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has become the ugly side of the Lobby, has rightly drawn criticism for its bullying tactics and its alignment with extreme right-wing parties in Israel.  Progressives and some conservatives in the United States who support Israel as a homeland for the world’s Jews have been eager to find a more respectable alternative lobby.  That alternative is J Street.

J Street, which recently completed its third annual conference in Washington, is a self-proclaimed kinder and gentler advocate of Israeli interests.  It favors peace on equitable terms with the Palestinians and also with Israel’s Arab neighbors.  It opposes expansion of the Israeli settlements on the West Bank because they are an obstacle to peace.  It calls itself "pro-Israel, pro-American, and pro-peace."  If one judges by the enemies it has attracted, including nearly all leading neoconservatives, J Street has to be considered a breath of fresh air and the best option for sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  But somehow the parts don’t quite add up.  J Street really only differs from AIPAC in tone, not in substance.  It advocates continued and unlimited United States support for Israel, militarily, economically, and politically.  J Street wants Israel to have an overwhelming military advantage over its Arab neighbors and it wants that margin to be provided by Washington.  It wants Republicans and Democrats together to provide political cover for Israel when it attacks Lebanon or bombs the Gazans.  It does not object when Israel exercises a military option against its neighbors. In spite of the fact that the United States is in deep trouble economically while Israel is one of the richest countries in the world and is enjoying an economic boom, J Street was one of the first organizations to complain when Senator Rand Paul called for an end to all foreign aid.

J Street also believes that Israel is and should be a Jewish state with unlimited right of "return" for Jews from anywhere in the world and no such rights for Christians or Muslims who lived in the country before 1948.  A Jewish state, by definition, would have limited rights for the 20% and growing segment of the current Israeli population that is Christian or Muslim.  J Street quixotically supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, even though it knows that the half million Israeli Jews living in settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be moved and will make two states impossible.  It does not accept a one-state solution, the only one likely to work, that would make the followers of all religions equal citizens in a unified state embracing both Arabs and Jews.  J Street’s Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami has called a one-state solution a "nightmare."

J Street seems a lot better than AIPAC, but much of what it advocates sounds familiar.  Ben-Ami has criticized the highly acclaimed John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt book on the Israel Lobby for its scholarship and refers to the authors as anti-Semites. J Street opposed Israel’s bloody incursion into Gaza, but only because it was disproportionate, and then rejected the UN’s Goldstone report that detailed the war crimes that were committed.  When Israeli commandoes killed nine Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza, J Street mourned the loss of life but blamed the victims for deliberately "using the media coverage to further damage Israel’s standing in world opinion."  J Street supports military action against Iran as a "last resort" to incapacitate the country’s nuclear program and denies to Tehran the right to enrich uranium for any purpose.

Supporters of J Street claim that its positions will become more nuanced as its influence grows, but one of the panels at the just-concluded convention debated "Is the Settlement Enterprise Destroying Israel’s Democracy?"  One might well ask why there was a question mark at the end since it is well documented that the settlements bring with them every imaginable evil. Fifteen months ago, J Street sponsored a speaking tour by an Israeli general Danny Rothschild who was advocating a two-state solution with the Palestinians.  He made the rounds in Washington arguing that demographics and common sense dictate that Israel must come to some kind of settlement.  But then, he added, there is "Islamofascism" and also Iran, genuine threats that must be dealt with by force.  So what was the real message, peace with the Palestinians (on Israel’s terms, it might be added), or expand the war against extremism while bombing Iran?

But the real problem with J Street is that it exists at all.  Why should there be a new and powerful lobby in Washington composed of American citizens arguing for a special relationship with any country?  Why should the United States be providing unlimited support to a nation that claims to be a democracy but which limits rights based on religion?  If J Street truly wants to fix Israel it should be working in Israel, not in the United States, because the settlers and hardline right-wing parties are Israeli problems. J Street knows perfectly well that Congress, the White House, and the media will not challenge the Israel status quo so, at best, it is a bit of scam designed to support Israel while making progressives feel more comfortable in lining up behind the effort.

The United States already has too many special interest lobbies promoting policies that do absolutely nothing good for the American people.  If Israel has become a rogue state, which it has, the problem must be resolved by the Israelis themselves and the diaspora Jews who believe that they have a stake in the outcome.  If the latter really want to have an impact, they should turn in their US passports and move to Israel.  From the American perspective, which should be the only one that matters to US citizens, the best policy for the United States is to disengage from the Arab-Israel conflict, not to become even more deeply involved from another, slightly more palatable perspective offered by J Street.

 

US Calls The Shots In Australian Elections, Wikileaks

Australia is subservient to US Imperialism

  

By Patrick O'Connor

"... Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it’s unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP.”

These comments outline who really calls the shots in Australia’s so-called parliamentary democracy.

The latest batch of the several hundred leaked US diplomatic cables concerning Australia, provided by WikiLeaks to the Fairfax company’s Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, provide further extraordinary evidence of Washington’s direct involvement in the anti-democratic coup against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June.

Key coup plotters in the Labor Party and trade unions—including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes—secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership. As early as June 2008, the American ambassador identified Julia Gillard as the “front-runner” to replace Rudd. In October 2009, i.e., eight months before Gillard was installed in unprecedented circumstances, Mark Arbib informed American officials of emerging leadership tensions. The Australian people, on the other hand, were kept entirely in the dark about any differences between the prime minister and his colleagues until after Rudd was ousted.

Gillard was described, some two years before the coup, by US diplomatic officials as the “rising star” within the Labor government. They made various enquiries into Gillard’s foreign policy sympathies, receiving assurances from government sources that her origins in the party’s “left” faction had no policy significance whatsoever. Arbib told the embassy that Gillard was “one of the most pragmatic politicians in the ALP”; Victorian senator David Feeney added that “there is no longer any intellectual integrity in the factions” and that “there is no major policy issue on which he, a Right factional leader, differs from Gillard”. When embassy officials checked on Gillard with Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union boss and subsequent anti-Rudd coup plotter, observing that “ALP politicians from the Left, no matter how capable, do not become party leader,” he responded immediately: “but she votes with the Right’.”

The Sydney Morning Herald and Age have published parts of the latest material in excerpted form, ahead of their full public release expected in coming weeks. They focus today on Mark Arbib’s role as a “secret US source”. One of the key apparatchiks in Labor’s powerful New South Wales right-wing faction, Arbib reportedly made several requests to US officials that his identity as a “protected” informant be guarded.

The cables refer to Arbib as early as mid-2006, when he served as NSW Labor Party state secretary. After being elected to the senate in the November 2007 federal election, the factional leader deepened his relationship with Washington. A US embassy profile, authored in July 2009, noted that Arbib “understands the importance of supporting a vibrant relationship with the US” and that officials “have found him personable, confident and articulate”. The profile also recorded that he “has met with us repeatedly throughout his political rise”. Other cables referred to the senator as a “right-wing powerbroker and political rising star” and noted his influence within both Labor’s factions and “Rudd’s inner circle”.

The cables make clear that Arbib and the other identified MPs function not simply as mere US “sources”, as characterised in the media today—but rather as agents. Within the Labor and trade unions apparatuses, these party members serve as conduits for Washington’s agenda. The embassy communications reveal the extent to which the US government determines Australian foreign policy and dictates who will hold senior government posts, including the office of prime minister.

A precise chronology of Washington’s sordid, behind-the-scenes manipulation of Australian political affairs, between the Labor Party’s election victory in November 2007 and Rudd’s axing in June 2010, is likely to emerge once WikiLeaks releases the full cache of relevant cables.

Already, however, it is now beyond dispute that Washington began cultivating Gillard at the same time as embassy officials were issuing damning assessments of Rudd, above all over his stance on Beijing. In June 2008, the same month Gillard was named as the “front-runner” to succeed Rudd, the prime minister unveiled his Asia-Pacific Community project, attempting to mediate the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China. An American embassy cable lambasted this proposal as yet another Rudd initiative launched “without advance consultation”. (See: “WikiLeaks cables cast fresh light on coup against former Australian PM Rudd”)

Beginning at this time, the Fairfax press reports: “US diplomats were anxious to establish Ms Gillard’s attitudes towards Australia’s alliance with the United States and other key foreign policy questions, especially in regard to Israel. Numerous Labor figures were drawn by US diplomats into conversation concerning Ms Gillard’s personality and political positions with ‘many key ALP insiders’ quickly telling embassy officers that her past membership of the Victorian Labor Party’s Socialist Left faction meant little and that she was ‘at heart a pragmatist’.”

Gillard was undoubtedly aware that she was being sounded out. One cable sent to the State Department in mid-2008 stated: “Although long appearing ambivalent about the Australia-US Alliance, Gillard’s actions since she became the Labor Party number two indicate an understanding of its importance. [US embassy political officers] had little contact with her when she was in opposition but since the election, Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it’s unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP.”

These comments outline who really calls the shots in Australia’s so-called parliamentary democracy. Labor leaders must understand “what they need to do”—that is, kowtow on every major strategic and foreign policy issue to Washington. They need to recognise that Australia is an obedient servant of US imperialism, and that its political superstructure must function accordingly.

Arbib issued a terse statement today, simply outlining that he was an active member of the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and “like many members of the federal parliament, have regular discussions about the state of Australian and US politics with members of the US mission and consulate”. Contained here is a fairly clear warning, by Labor’s key backroom operator, to anyone in the government thinking of using the revelations against him. Arbib has helpfully reminded them that he enjoys Washington’s support, and that others are sure to be implicated as more cables are released.

The Fairfax press has already named former Labor national secretary and Rudd government cabinet member Bob McMullen and current backbencher Michael Danby as among those named in the WikiLeaks documents. Others likely to be named are starting to come out of the woodwork, in an effort to pre-empt the fallout. Health Minister Nicola Roxon today volunteered that she is likely to be identified, as she “meets with US diplomats from time to time”. Greens’ leader Bob Brown has foreshadowed similar revelations—though he was at pains to point out that he was always “very careful” in his responses, and spoke with diplomats “from all over the world, from Bangladesh to the US to New Zealand, Taiwan and Beijing”.

The cables will no doubt reveal similar relationships between Washington and senior Australian media personnel. Editors, journalists, and broadcasters are routinely nurtured through the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and other such forums.

The excerpted cables also expose the close working relationship between the US government and Australia’s trade unions. The Fairfax press noted that “senior union leaders have privately briefed US officials about how they use their influence over the Labor Party to shape federal government policies”, and cited an August 2009 cable, which stated that the trade unions “continue to play a significant role in the formulation of national policies that can impact the United States”. Discussions between US embassy officials and senior figures in the Australian Workers Union and the National Union of Workers were reported, with one cable declaring that the leaders of the right-wing unions were “dynamic and forward thinking”.

The same cable reportedly described the declining influence of the “left” unions within the Labor Party, a conclusion that was “drawn partly through briefings from CFMEU [Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union] national secretary Dave Noonan and Victorian secretary Bill Oliver”. These two figures—often hailed as great militants by the various middle class pseudo-left outfits—were described by US embassy officials as “capable leaders”.

MLK: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam."

"Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Endgame in Afghanistan [Significant Video]

 

Endgame In Afghanistan: 'It's Taken A Year To Move 20km'

By Sean Smith, Michael Tait, Guy Grandjean and Alex Rees

As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand front line shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood. Warning: the clip contains distressing scenes and strong language.

Guardian film-maker and photographer Sean Smith has just spent five weeks in Afghanistan, first with a US helicopter ambulance crew, and then with the US marines. This is his astonishing diary of his time with special forces.


2/06/2010

At 8.30am I leave Kandahar US airbase on a flight with the Guardian Angels; these are specially trained US air force helicopter pilots who fly into combat areas to pick up the injured. Accompanying them are the "jumpers", the armed paramedics who will jump out and get the wounded – or the bodies. There's also a gunner who mans the machine guns as the helicopter lands.

They are working 12-hour shifts. Mostly they are watching movies, doing emails. Today there was a class on how to treat burns.

3/06/2010

In the morning we pick up a US soldier who has been shot in the face and chest on patrol. We're hit by two rounds of gunfire shot through the underneath of the helicopter. To take out the helicopter when it comes in to pick up the wounded soldier – that's the real prize.

The injured guy was on the verge of passing out and couldn't move his face or say anything because his cheek had been shot away, and his airways were blocked. He survived. Later on, we pick up another soldier who had lost two legs and an arm. He made it too.

4/06/2010

Pick up an Afghan lorry driver caught by an IED (improvised explosive device).

5/6/2010

Pick up an Afghan soldier who has shot himself in the foot.

6/06/2010

We are called out to a soldier who has stepped on a mine. We land, as there is no one shooting at us. He has lost an arm and a leg but still has a pulse. The medics are doing emergency resuscitation. We are only in the air five minutes and they are pumping and pumping and still going at him on the stretcher as he is taken off the copter. He doesn't make it.

8/06/2010

I am at Camp Bastion with the British and am trying to fly to Nadi Ali. But the first flight is full. They get me on a Lynx helicopter later for Bastion, with the letters and parcels for the troops.

20/06/2010

I'm in Dand district, near Kandahar city. I'm with the US army and we're supposed to go out at 8am to talk to locals, to do the hearts-and-minds stuff. The problem is that the Afghan national army who are with us don't speak Pashtun; they only speak Dari. So the Americans end up doing all the talking through a translator – which is missing the point of what we are supposed to be doing. The American medic passes out in the heat and is sick twice. It's over 50C.

22.06.2010

Road-opening ceremony. It was in one of the little villages where they are paying Afghans to build roads. We drive off the tarmac in case of IEDs. When we get there, there are lots of young men standing around with brand-new blades and picks, paid for by the Americans. They have clearly never been used. There's no new road.

The governor has even come down from Kabul to make a speech. We only stay 15 minutes because the whole thing is rubbish. The lieutenant colonel is very angry.

25/06/2010

Three soldiers are brought in today injured at a nearby deserted school by an IED. Even in this "stable" area all the schools are deserted. None of the kids is going to school. I leave for Kandahar base. Continued...

Wiki Leaks is Old News

Passing off old news for brand new news

By Chris Floyd

These leaked "bombshells" will simply bounce off the hardened shell of American exceptionalism, which easily ustifies the slaughter of civilians, "targeted killings", "indefinite detention" and any number of other atrocities.

The much ballyhooed dump of intelligence and diplomatic files concerning the Afghan War has been trumpeted as some kind of shocking expose, "painting a different picture" than the official version of events -- revelations that are sure to rock the Anglo-American political establishments to their foundations.

The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel were given 92,000 reports by Wikileaks, including thousands of pages of raw "human intelligence."

That is, uncorroborated claims and gossip from interested parties and anonymous sources pushing a multitude of agendas.

They diplomatic notes passed between the promulgators of the occupation in Washington and their factotums "in country" -- reports which you might imagine also purvey a multitude of agendas ... not least the supreme agenda of all officials involved in a dubious enterprise: ass-covering.

Yet these reports are being treated as if they are the "grim truth" behind the shining picture of official propaganda. But what do these stories in the NYT and Guardian actually "reveal"? Let's see:

* That the occupation forces kill lots of civilians at checkpoints and botched raids, then lie about it afterward.

* That these killings make Afghans angry and fuel the insurgency.

* That elements of Pakistani intelligence are involved with some elements of the many resistance groups known collectively (and incorrectly) in the West as the Taliban.

* That the Americans are using more and more robot drones to kill people.

* That the Americans are running death squads in Afghanistan aimed at Taliban leaders.

* That Afghan officials are corrupt, and that Afghan police and military forces are woefully inadequate.

Is there anything in these breathless new recitations that we did not already know? How does this alter the prevailing conventional wisdom about the war?

It doesn't, of course. These leaked "bombshells" will simply bounce off the hardened shell of American exceptionalism, which easily justifies the slaughter of civilians, "targeted killings", "indefinite detention" and any number of other atrocities. In fact, I predict the chief "takeaway" from the story will be this:

American forces are doing their best to help the poor Afghans, but the ungrateful natives are too weak and corrupt to be trusted, while America's good intentions are also being thwarted by evil outsiders.


Getting this message out via "critical" stories in "liberal" publications is much more effective than dishing up another serving of patriotic hokum on Fox News or at a presidential press conference.

In fact, it is so much more effective that one almost begins to wonder about the ultimate provenance of the leaks. Did some deep-delving gamester allow these files to get out? Most likely not; but their ultimate effect does provoke the age-old question, cui bono?

The assumption is that these 92,000 files about the Afghan war were obtained by an American private serving in Iraq, the unfortunate Bradley Manning, who is now under arrest for the "crime" of leaking something far more disturbing than any written document. That was a video showing the slaughter of Iraqi civilians by American Apache helicopters in 2007 [see above].

Washington knows that a couple of moving pictures on the tee-vee have a far greater potential to disturb the moral sleep of the American people than tens of thousands of newspaper reports -- or leaked documents -- detailing similar killings.

That said, in the end the Apache video has had zero effect on public perceptions of the Iraq War, which most people believe is "over," or on public support for the murderous machinations of the Terror War in general, which most people believe needs to continue in one form or another, to "keep us safe."

The only kind of grim truth attended to by anyone in America these days is that which can be shown in moving pictures. (Although the number of people who are upset even by that seems to be rapidly diminishing. That's why Manning had to be put away.

I don't question the bravery or sincerity of Manning or of Julian Assanage in bringing the latest material to light. And I suppose on balance it is better to have it than not to have it.

But I still question the usefulness of rolling out mountains of raw "human intelligence".

It's precisely the same kind of unfiltered junk that was "stovepiped" to build the false case for the mass-murdering invasion of Iraq -- about Iran, al Qaeda, Pakistan; even North Korea gets into the mix.

None of this can be checked -- but all of it will be extremely useful to those who want to build cases for more and more military action, death squads and covert actions around the world.

And it seems very odd that intelligence reports and bureaucratic memos by forces carrying out a prolonged, brutal military occupation of another country are now being treated by "liberal" media outlets as holy writ.

It claims to paint a "true" picture of the war -- a picture that omits any reference to American war-related corruption, for instance, not only in Afghanistan but more especially in Washington, or to America's wider "Great Game" machinations in Central Asia, involving pipelines, strategic bases and "containing China," etc.

Nothing will come of this document dump. It won't lead to the prosecution of even one single person for a war-related crime, or to a genuine debate over the morality of the war in the political and media establishments. There won't be a rise in public opposition to the Terror War project.

If any of that happened I would rejoice, and embrace the flashy packages of the NYT, Guardian and Der Spiegel at their own self-inflated valuation.

I believe the net effect will be simply to entrench the conventional wisdom about the war in the halls of power and in the echo chambers of opinion on both sides of the Atlantic.

We have already seen far too many atrocities, brutalities and acts of criminal folly countenanced, when they are not actually praised, far too many times -- over and over and over again -- in the course of the last decade to believe that these disgorgings of junk intelligence and apparatchik memos will make any difference.

Any difference for the better, that is. For I believe they will supply plenty of ammunition to those bent on further murder and plunder.

Dumb war

Obama opposes, "dumb war" but also fights one

By Stanly Kutler

Obama should recall what he said in 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.” Our diminished capacities and resources make such endeavors problematic. We cannot ignore present realities and forget the past.

The American Empire is alive and well and as expansive as ever. We have established more than 700 military bases across the world, largely encircling the peripheries of Russia and China, which are now central to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The Cold War in the aftermath of World War II drove the expansion as we searched for security—and markets, to be sure.

Perhaps we now are the largest imperial power the world ever has known. Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan trivializes the once-massive naval and air facility at Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War, and we have developed “permanent” mega-bases in Iraq. We engage in denial, and euphemisms abound.

Stumping for the colonial takeover of the Philippines in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, so fashionable today, insisted that “there is not an imperialist in the country... Expansion? Yes. ... Expansion has been the law of our national growth.”

Chalmers Johnson reminds us of Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s liberal “idealist imperialism,” which would make the world safe for democracy. Deceit comes from the top.

Johnson cites neoconservative journalist Charles Krauthammer, who, as we embarked on the Afghanistan war, touted the British model and remarked that “Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.”

Oh? Then why did the British with their jodhpurs and pith helmets fail in Afghanistan, as did the Russians, whether Cossacks with swords or Soviets with missiles?

Why did the British ignominiously retreat from their empire, and why did the Soviets tuck tail and leave Afghanistan in the 1980s? Rather pathetic models, and hardly to be emulated, one would think.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently visited the Republic of Georgia, which Russia had invaded in 2008 in helping establish independence for two breakaway provinces. George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice expressed outrage and sympathy for the Georgians—who sit astride the oil-rich Caucasus.

We are still at it, now in a “bipartisan” manner, pushing for, or appearing to push for, NATO membership for Georgia. When asked to specify why Georgia was so important for the United States, Clinton responded with glittering generalities of support—no blank check here, only evasion.

Clinton ardently courted an informal alliance. She reiterated the U.S. “commitment” to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Further, she said that the U.S. “does not recognize spheres of influence”—meaning Russian.

In one sense, the statement reflected our foreign policy since 1945, while we of course maintained and expanded our own spheres of influence. The Monroe Doctrine since the 19th century offers ample evidence, and then add the Truman Doctrine, NATO and the now-forgotten CENTO and SEATO.

The Soviet Union is history, but Russia has maintained its “spheres of influence.”

After the collapse of communism, Georgia and Russia renewed their economic ties, but there were tensions over the country’s European ambitions.

Some political groups wanted to join NATO. There was the discord over Georgian involvement with Chechen rebels Russia was less than thrilled with the Georgian government. The 2008 "invasion" underlined Moscow’s determination to maintain its own “sphere of influence.”

The Obama administration is thoroughly committed to defense of the empire it inherited; there is no or little retreat from the mindless expansion of American ambition.

Teddy Roosevelt would be proud. Why are supporters of Barack Obama dismayed and shocked by his Afghanistan course, when, after all, in his 2008 campaign he promised nothing less?

In his first presidential campaign debate with John McCain, Obama said: “We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. … So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan.”

Democrats and liberals so fear the war-loving right that they believe they must have their own adventures. But this is not 1961, when President John F. Kennedy told an enthralled nation that we “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” And thus he brought the Vietnam quagmire.

There are limits to our power; sadly, presidential candidates will not utter that truth, whatever painful adventures we have had. Obama might remember what he said in 2002:

“I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.”

Our diminished capacities and resources make such endeavors problematic. We cannot ignore present realities and forget the past.

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele recently attacked the Obama administration’s Afghanistan war efforts in a thoughtful statement.

Typically, the media jumped on him—NPR called it his “gaffe”—and his speech contained the media’s Sound Bite of the Week: “a war of Obama’s choosing.”

Steele’s remarks, which include a larger criticism of the war, are worth reading in full. [Editor’s note: Click here to see a transcript of Steele’s comment.]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The Republican ever-ready war hawks assailed Steele, who has no visible supporters within his party, let alone among Democrats. (He is unlikely to lose his position because of this flap; his presence is useful electorally.)

William Kristol invoked our Eleventh Commandment that political differences over foreign policy stop at the water’s edge (has he heard of the Internet?)—the usual ploy to thwart debate. Kristol called Steele’s remarks an “affront” to the Republican Party and to our “commitment to our soldiers.”

Sen. McCain and his cohorts metaphorically grabbed the microphone and assailed Steele because he undermined and assaulted the basic imperial behavior of the past six decades.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, McCain’s faithful sidekick, said, “This is not President Obama’s war, this is America’s war.” But Steele may have been playing good politics. The Afghanistan war is increasingly unpopular, even though for now his critique has not gained traction.

Sadly, there is little debate over the war in Afghanistan, as there is little about foreign policy generally.

Steele confronted a longstanding consensus that supports our imperial expansion—again, supported by real and imagined security interests, magnified by economic considerations, not least of which is the health of our domestic “defense industry” enterprise.

Our foreign policy course hardly arouses Congress, which has not raised any serious discussion since the Senate ratified the NATO treaty in 1949, or when Congress organized to cut off funding for the Vietnam conflict.

The Senate Armed Services Committee fulfilled McCain’s prediction that Gen. David Petraeus would be quickly and unanimously confirmed as military commander in Afghanistan. Sen. Robert Byrd’s death diminished the opposition, leaving few in the Senate with the will or courage to challenge U.S. policy in that war.

As Petraeus took command of the “international” forces in Afghanistan, he declared that “we are in this to win.” Obama’s promise to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 may be politely ignored.

We can be sure the general did not undertake this command to dismantle an American army. President Obama may look back nostalgically on the simplicity of sacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Israel and the NY Times

Israeli propaganda

 By Bill Van Auken


Who is threatening whom? Israel is the one state in the world that recognizes no permanent boundaries.

In the north, it has repeatedly invaded Lebanon. In the east, it has imposed unbearable conditions of life on West Bank Palestinians. And in the south, it is now pounding Gaza's population.

Benny Morris, a prominent Israeli historian, has written an opinion piece for the New York Times called Why Israel Feels Threatened.

His views were formerly identified with the Israeli left, but who in the past several years has swung decisively over to the extreme right.

The article provides a lengthy and sophisticated justification of the slaughter in Gaza and a sinister warning of greater crimes still to come.

He presents a portrait of Israel surrounded by increasingly dangerous enemies, while confronted with dwindling support from its allies in the West.

"To the east, Iran... to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist organization Hezbollah... To the south, Israel faces the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip."

As a result of these "dire threats," Morris insists, "Israelis feel that the walls—and history—are closing in on their 60-year-old state."

Who is threatening whom? Israel is the one state in the world that recognizes no permanent boundaries. In the north, it has repeatedly invaded Lebanon, on the last occasion in July 2006, carrying out massive bombings of the country's south and Beirut's suburbs and killing thousands of civilians.

In the east, it has imposed unbearable conditions of life on West Bank Palestinians, sealing them behind an apartheid wall and subjecting them to restrictions, roadblocks and repression.

And in the south, it is now pounding Gaza's teeming neighborhoods with high explosives, while preparing for a ground invasion.

As for Iran, Morris spoke for the bullying state that he represents in an op-ed piece that the Times published in July, essentially threatening the Iranian people with nuclear annihilation.

Urging a conventional bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Morris wrote then that the operation would result in "thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation" for Iran.

He added that, if this attack failed to halt Iran's nuclear program, "The alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland."

In his latest piece, Morris reserves what he perceives as the darkest threat for last: demography.

The very existence of 1.3 million Arab citizens inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, he warns, "offers the recipe" for the "dissolution of the Jewish state."

These Arab-Israelis, he states, have become "radicalized" and are "embracing Palestinian national aims." Moreover, higher birthrates among Arab-Israelis, if the trend continues, mean that they would constitute the majority of Israel's citizens by as early as 2040.

Within as little as five years, Arabs could become the majority within the borders of pre-1948 Palestine (including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza).

"Most Jews," Morris asserts, "see the Arab minority as a potential fifth column."

He concludes that the threats facing Israel are "difficult to counter" because of Israel's commitment to "Western democratic and liberal norms."

He adds darkly that the sense of danger from these developments "has this past week led to one violent reaction. Given the new realities, it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow."

For the casual reader of the Times, this piece by Morris is clearly meant to inculcate a weary acceptance of still greater atrocities in the name of Israeli "self defense."

The politics of Benny Morris

But, as the Times is well aware, Morris is a fervent and public advocate of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. For those more familiar with his political record, the genocidal conclusions that flow from his arguments are clear.

Morris first gained a name for himself as one of Israel's so-called "new historians," who in the 1980s exposed the founding myths of the Zionist state.

he provided documentary evidence that Israel was established only through the violent and forced expulsion of up to three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their land. This population of stateless refugees has now swelled to nearly 4 million.

While he was then considered a man of the left, beginning in 2000, with the onset of the second Intifada and the collapse of the Camp David "final status" talks, he turned sharply to the right.

He upheld his earlier findings—and produced new ones showing that Israeli military forces were responsible for a deliberate campaign of massacres and rapes aimed at driving out the Palestinians—but then defended these crimes as necessary and justifiable.

In a January 2004 interview with Ha'aretz Magazine, Morris spelled out his position: "Under some circumstances expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

Morris went further, declaring that Israel's founder, David Ben-Gurion, "should have done a complete job" and "cleaned the whole country" of Arabs. As historical justification, he added, "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians."

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing," he continued. "I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."

Morris was not merely offering his opinions on history. He insisted in his 2004 interview that under "other circumstances... which are likely to be realized in five or ten years," characterized by war and crisis, "acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential."

Elsewhere in the Ha'aretz interview, he described the Palestinian people as "a wild animal that has to be locked up in one way or another," and he concluded, "When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."

This is the language of fascism. It offers a pseudo-intellectual justification of the policy known in Israel as "transfer"—that is, the forced expulsion of the remaining Arab population from Israeli territory, and potentially from the West Bank and Gaza as well.

Initially championed by such fascistic elements as the late Meir Kahane, it has been increasingly embraced by Israel's main parties and leaders.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate for prime minister, expressed this policy somewhat delicately recently, declaring that as Israel's leader she would "approach the Palestinian residents of Israel ... and tell them: ‘Your national aspirations lie elsewhere.'"

The distinction that Morris makes between ethnic cleansing and genocide is a false one. One practice leads to the other. The Nazis' "final solution" initially called for forced emigration, the expulsion of Jews from Germany. Then came the death camps.

The Times' publication of Morris's column only underscores its own opportunistic and cynical attitude towards ethnic cleansing and genocide. Whether it opposes these practices or tacitly accepts them is entirely dependent on who is carrying them out and whose interests are served.

Thus, on Sunday it published a piece by its columnist Nicholas Kristof urging Obama to take military action against Sudan over what he described as genocide in Darfur.

Similarly, the newspaper was a major proponent of US intervention in the former Yugoslavia in response to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and charges of the same in Kosovo.

When opposing ethnic cleansing serves to further US consolidation of its control over oil-rich countries in Africa or to expand eastward the domination of NATO, it becomes a moral imperative. When it is practiced by US allies, it is quietly supported.The slaughter in Gaza and the more horrific crimes being suggested by the likes of Morris are a telling indication of the political, social and moral blind alley reached by the nationalist project initiated under the banner of Zionism.

American Media's Cultural Conquesnt

Watch our shows! Wear our cloths!

By Peter Mwaura

This form of imperialism colonizes the mind. There's a growing dominance of global media/entertainment systems, influenced mainly by the culture and interests of the US. The dominance results in the displacement or destruction of indigenous cultures.

Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day. The day celebrates press freedom and evaluates press freedom worldwide. Maybe, May 3 should also be a time to think about casting out the demons of cultural imperialism.

The UN General Assembly, when it proclaimed the day in 1993, forgot cultural imperialism, which has been around since the 1960s. Cultural imperialism, otherwise known as media imperialism, describes a situation where one country, or countries, dominate others through exports of their media products, such as television programming and news.

To speak of casting out the demons is, therefore, an allegory for decolonising the mind. There is a growing dominance of global media systems and entertainment products, influenced mainly by the culture and interests of the United States. The dominance results in the displacement or destruction of indigenous cultures.

Much of the dominance comes from the American media system. The US exports more media and entertainment products than any other nation and three of the most important transnational media corporations — AOL Time Warner, Disney and News Corporation (owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch, who acquired American citizenship) — are American.

At the same time, English remains the predominant language on the Internet, even though it is not the native language that most people in the world speak. There are, for example, three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.

In cultural imperialism, nations with dominant media systems impose their beliefs, values, lifestyles, and ideologies on others. America’s dominance in the entertainment industries makes it difficult for African countries to produce and distribute their own cultural products.

Add to that the growing popularity of Mexico’s romantic soaps, and the competition becomes tougher. Cultural imperialism prevents the development of native cultures and has a negative impact on the natives, who reject their own culture in favour of a foreign one.

The story of the women of Fiji is illustrative. Women with fuller figures are traditionally admired. Then television was introduced on the island in 1995 and Fijians started watching American shows like Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place.

Over a three-year period, Anne Becker, director of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center of Harvard Medical School, carried out a study on the island to investigate shifts in body image and eating practices.

She found that the Western images and values transmitted via television led to an increase in disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

A survey of teenage girls found that 74 percent of them felt they were “too big or fat”. The girls had absorbed the Western ideals of beauty. “The teenagers see TV as a model for how one gets by in the modern world,” reported Dr Becker. “They believe the shows depict reality.”

Cultural imperialism can take many forms. John Tomlinson, author of the book, Cultural Imperialism, defines cultural imperialism as “the use of political and economic power to exalt and spread the values and habits of a foreign culture at the expense of a native culture.”

Herbert Schiller, one of the best known writers on media imperialism, defines cultural imperialism as:

“The sum of the process by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system.”

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in Decolonising the Mind, gives many examples of cultural imperialism. “But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism,” he writes, “is the cultural bomb.”

The effect of a cultural bomb is to “annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves,” he says.

“It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland,” he concludes. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish.”

Cultural domination by the media was not something that was foreseen when on December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which Article 19 states that press freedom includes the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”