.. and no, it's not all about you!
.. subtitle: what *really* matters.
-=*=-
Preamble: the systems that we have are not just wrong but are also outright bad.
Our 'democracies' (US, UK, Aus + Israel) are dysfunctional; of at least three prime requirements (switched-on electorate, free and fair information flows, valid choice of candidates) - we have as good as *none*. It's no good to say well, democracy is the worst form of government - except all others, when what we've got is just not democracy at all, it's *something else* masquerading[1] under the name of democracy. Quite clearly, something that is false is not the truth; 'not the truth' is - a lie.
Principle of exclusion:
1. If someone is ill-informed, or just does not think, then that person (many!) is excluded (from my consideration) - and such people (too many!) - form the sheople®.
2. If someone deviates from the truth, either by commission or omission, whether deliberately (by design) or 'just' accidentally(??!) - then such people are excluded (from my consideration) - and are termed liars. This obviously includes a lot'a people, not *just* the venal MSM (incl. big bits'a the AusBC & SBS) - but 'untruthers' everywhere, aka all filthy liars.
3. If a representative fails to properly represent their electors, as their absolute 1st priority, then such representatives are excluded (from my consideration) - and are termed traitors.
In the early days of my blogging, just as in the early days of my actual life, I decided lies were not for me; for both moral and practical reasons, I would be a 'seeker (now reporter) of truth.' But it wasn't then and it isn't now enough; I seek justice via truth, as in:
"Fair go, ya mug!"
To tie-up the principle of exclusion: if something is not truth, it/they (lies) are to be excluded. If something is not just, it/they (injustices) are also to be excluded. Obviously, lies and injustices abound, the task is a) to identify and then b) to eliminate each and every one.
To end my preamble, these two:
1. 'Man does not live by bread alone.' Totally stripped of any and all superstition (aka 'religion,' say), we have not just a physical existence but also a mental one (the latter depending solely on the former).
2. Sooo, my answer to Q: "What *really* matters?" is A: To live in peace; not just with adequate sustenance for physical existence, but also for mental peace as well: bread and justice.
-=*=-
Musing: "I think, therefore I am." We live for the moment, however that may be defined. The brain is a physical construct; it takes time for the electrical impulses thought to constitute thoughts to propagate (our 'software' functions), and more time for the swirling chemical (energy, hormone) fluids to circulate (hence 'wetware.') Well may we say 'carpe diem,' and recall a computer analogy: 'garbage in, garbage out.' We have needs (air, food, clothing & shelter) and wants (imaginings), our wants are manipulable (creating demand, worst = both religion and 'selling a war.') Obviously, people manipulating wants in 'support' of negative 'outcomes' (illegal invasion of Iraq, say; a dastardly crime of exactly Nuremberg proportions) - are also criminals themselves.
-=*=-
Specifics: Greedastrophe®, Israel, Iraq, Iran.
I had a friend (now dead, sadly) who used to say: "Ya don't bullshit y'r friends!" - Well, I don't BS anyone; what must be said here:
Greedastrophe®. If nothing is done or not enough (current apparent course), our life-sustaining biosphere may be damaged beyond its ability to sustain us. Drastic action is required (here I exclude so-called climate-change sceptics aka deniers); current 'leader/rulers' are failing us.
Israel. What can be said, about this middle-east malignancy? Not too much; WYSIWYG, an invasion (conventionally if not correctly identified as 'Zionist') of outsiders killing to steal the prior legal owners' land and water. That they 'hang' their arguments on the holocaust is obvious, what they don't see is that they now 'ape' their former persecutors in every important detail.
Iraq. Illegal invasion now been morphed into brutal occupation. 'Murder for oil' can neither be ruled out nor denied; usually war should pay for itself and in this case that's how. There can be no doubt, see Cheney's oily machinations. The lying-denying language is quite specific: geo-strategic concerns, also in this 'bucket' come advanced military bases, i.e. the US jackboot on the world's cowardly supine neck. Whether 'Zionist' desires for some "Greater Israel" played a part is superficially denied - but is also probably undeniable. Democratisation is a furphy, one cannot democratise by invasion at the point of a gun, and the self-proclaimed democratizers have no functioning democracies themselves. The murdering perpetrators and erring apologists both lie and deny - but to no good effect; we (truth-seekers) see all.
Iran. Any attack by USrael must be seen for what it would be, a criminal act of naked aggression.
-=*=-
Intermezzo: Why lie? Silly of me for asking; to deceive, to hide something - most likely, bigger crimes. The world's biggest criminals are two, the US and Israel. Together, via the M-W report's Israel Lobby, forming USrael, these crooks are lying, denying - and murdering for spoil. All the accessory/apologists, the professional (venal MSM) and amateur (erroneous ideologue) propagandists, all of these liars only try to conceal the vicious murdering-thief type USrael criminal actions.
-=*=-
Mechanics: Some way must be found to force the representatives to properly represent. Then if/when different, rulers must be made to rule wisely; either shit or get off the pot (detested Ameri-speak; spit!) Note the use of 'force,' 'must be made.' This is not a call for violent revolution - but since it appears that the 'power-grabbers' only understand force (apart from their lies (consider undoubted intimidation), almost their only other tool is a (military) hammer), then some form of violence must be used, and here I have but one slim hope: that the pen really is mightier than the sword. Sheople awake, demand your universal human rights!
-=*=-
Fazit: Truth will out; to attempt denial is to lie. In the end, we're all dead but it's what we do in the meantime that matters; my stance is clear: I advocate justice for all, via truth everywhere.
-=*end*=-
PS random thoughts:
Inclusive/exclusive, arrogance and ignorance, not just of youth.
Truth vs. lies; selective, hypocrisy, utterly lacking any sense of irony.
-=* =-
Ref(s):
[1] masquerade —n. 1 false show, pretence. 2 masked ball. —v. (-ding) (often foll. by as) appear falsely or in disguise. [Spanish máscara mask]
2008/06/14
the mortal danger of denial ...
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both a lie ...
.. and an obscenity
-=*=-
As if 'on cue:'
«Israel announces new Jerusalem settlement plans
Posted June 13, 2008 21:07:00
Israel has announced its second settlement project in occupied east Jerusalem in a month, enraging Palestinians ahead of a US visit aimed at rescuing the peace process.»
[AusBC/justin]
This sort'a stuff happens all'a time.
More: «... and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.»
Even to mouth the words peace process in such cases is an utter obscenity.
But the AusBC does that all'a time, too.
Oh yeah; tell us about a peace process that's produced nothing other than ever more Palestinian suffering for - wait for it: 60+ years!
There is absolutely no excuse for this sort'a stuff, neither doing it (the Israelis) nor reporting it (the AusBC.) Neither can either say "Der, I didn't think!" On the one hand, one (i.e. Israel) doesn’t build 1000s of illegal dwellings 'by accident,' nor does a so-called professional news outfit (i.e. the AusBC) make 'random' reports. The left hand (sinister) knows quite well what the right (actually, of course, not right) is doing, and both know it's 'simply' wrong. Boo! Hiss!
-=*=-
But there is, also of course, nothing 'simple' about crime: in this case the Israelis lying through their teeth, whilst stealing ever more Palestinian & surrounds' land and water.
Tell it to me once more time, AusBC - once is never enough, from a liar like you.
now hypocrisy ...
.. but don't take my word for it
-=*=-
US (Albright) hypocrisy, SMH letters June 14, 2008:
A flexible conscience
«The counsel of "conscience" from Madeleine Albright about the unquestionably criminal attitudes of the Burmese junta to the welfare of the country's citizens, needs historical context.
In 1996, Albright, then US secretary of state, calmly asserted on the US 60 Minutes program, in response to a question about the effects of the genocidal United Nations sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people, that "we think the price is worth it". Her reference was to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children as a direct result of sanctions so unconscionable two successive UN officials responsible for their implementation resigned in disgust.
The principal enforcer of these sanctions was the US government, led in these efforts by the redoubtable Albright.
Les MacDonald Balmain»
-=*=-
My comment: to the best of my knowledge and ability, the above is *fact*, that the US condemned ½mio Iraqi children to death, being only the half of the actual death toll - i.e. of about 1mio Iraqis, due to the US-inspired, US-enforced UN sanctions against Iraq between the two US wars against Iraq, namely between 1991 and 2003. Then we got the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq now morphed by the US into a brutal occupation. Some estimates put the death toll of hapless, 'collateral' Iraqis since then at 1.2mio, i.e. now well over 2mio dead since 1991, with about 2mio internally displaced and about 2mio fled since 2003. This is genocide writ large - a brand new, modern holocaust - and as good as nobody - except us truth-seeking bloggers - appears to give a hoot.
Q: Why is murdering crime on such a massive scale even possible, let alone tolerated?
And, of course, it just doesn't stop:
«Iran's concern about the deal comes amid renewed tensions over its nuclear program, which the United States fears is aimed at making atomic weapons, a charge vehemently rejected by Tehran.
The United States has never ruled out a military attack to punish Tehran's defiance while Israel has also been warning there may be no alternative to a strike against Iran.»
[AusBC/justin]
The way the AusBC reports US allegations is absolutely despicable, as if what the US said was not just to be taken on face-value but as fact. It's utterly reprehensible; the Iranian nuclear program is regularly certified by the IAEA as within guidelines, the whole US/AusBC psyop stinks. It's all designed for one (twinned) purpose: to scare the sheople® shitless, and to pave the way for even more murder for oil, aka a criminally aggressive 'strike' (aka a totally unjustified act of war) against Iran. Boo! Hiss!
Q: Why are such filthy threats even possible, let alone tolerated?
G'day Phil, on the matter of liars, a few words about Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice.
If you want to know what's wrong with the foreign policy establishment in the United States, look no further than Condoleezza Rice's article, "The New American Realism," published in the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs." Not only has the Council on Foreign Relations spread its pages wide open for an infamous interventionist -- a lying and deceitful enabler of the Bush administration's illegal, immoral unprovoked invasion of Iraq - it also readmitted Ms. Rice without requiring anything resembling a mea culpa for the crimes against humanity that have lowered her, the Bush administration and the United States to the depths of moral disrepute around the world.
Why publish the words of a liar and alleged war criminal? Who takes her seriously? Was her article accepted for publication because of her high position in the thoroughly discredited and morally bankrupt Bush administration? Or was publication a "no brainer," simply because the foreign policy elite at the Council on Foreign Relations actually shares Ms. Rice's smug interventionist conceit?
Whatever the excuse, it doesn't pass the smell test. Why? Because Rice's unimaginative, evasive and euphemism-riddled whitewash of Bush's disastrous "Time of Troubles" would barely merit a grade of "C" in any freshman course devoted to U.S. foreign policy.
Ms. Rice's case is not a matter of affirmative action encountering the Peter Principle. Instead, it's a matter of compensating for the Peter Principle with poorly disguised moral turpitude. For example, during the propaganda run up to the invasion of Iraq, Ms Rice lied when she said that the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq could "only" be used in nuclear weapons. We know she lied, because her assertion came after she learned of the disagreements within the intelligence community about how such tubes might be used.
Ms Rice also attempted to deceive members of the House of Representatives. She told them that, after 9/11, the U.S. had no choice, but to engage in what the September 2002 National Security Strategy euphemistically called "preemptive" wars. As we now know, the euphemism of preemption was a fig leaf for the "preventive" wars - otherwise known as wars of aggression - which the Bush administration actually intended to launch.
There's oil in Africa, so the Pentagon ...
The number of Americans who believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake has surpassed the number who felt the same way about Vietnam during that war. At the same time, a much quieter U.S. military build-up is underway on another continent. The ultimate objective of the two efforts is the same: securing Big Oil’s access to the regions’ oil. The impact in Africa will likely be the same as in Iraq: perpetual occupation, instability, and growing anti-Americanism.
In recognition of "the emerging strategic importance of Africa," in February 2007 President Bush ordered the creation of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. AFRICOM, like CENTCOM (Central Command) and EUCOM (European Command), centralizes all authority for the U.S. military operating in the African region under one command structure. AFRICOM also transfers many duties that previously belonged to nonmilitary US agencies – such as building schools and digging wells – to the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. While fighting terrorism in Africa is the primary reason given for the establishment of AFRICOM, oil appears to be the more pressing motivator. "A key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would be to insure that Nigeria’s oilfields, which in the future could account for as much as 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure," explains General Charles Wald, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe in an interview with Wall Street Journal writer Greg Jaffe.
On the impact of oil ... some disreputable people take recourse to demonising states and ideologies instead of dealing with the issues in a considered manner. North Korea is a common target, but is there more to the story - and a warning?
Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.
Just ask the North Koreans.
In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe -- though few saw it that way at the time.
That small Northeast Asian land, one of the last putatively communist countries on the planet, faced the same three converging factors as we do now -- escalating energy prices, a reduction in food supplies, and impending environmental catastrophe. At the time, of course, all the knowing analysts and pundits dismissed what was happening in that country as the inevitable breakdown of an archaic economic system presided over by a crackpot dictator.
They were wrong. The collapse of North Korean agriculture in the 1990s was not the result of backwardness. In fact, North Korea boasted one of the most mechanized agricultures in Asia. Despite claims of self-sufficiency, the North Koreans were actually heavily dependent on cheap fuel imports. (Does that already ring a bell?) In their case, the heavily subsidized energy came from Russia and China, and it helped keep North Korea's battalion of tractors operating. It also meant that North Korea was able to go through fertilizer, a petroleum product, at one of the world's highest rates. When the Soviets and Chinese stopped subsidizing those energy imports in the late 1980s and international energy rates became the norm for them, too, the North Koreans had a rude awakening.
The longer it takes to learn lessons ...
G'day Phil, more about "Mushroom Cloud". This time from Ken Huber:
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) commanded an E-2C Hawkeye squadron and was operations officer of a Navy air wing and an aircraft carrier. Jeff's essays have been required reading at the U.S. Naval War College where he earned a master's degree in preemptive deterrence in 1995. His satires on military and foreign policy affairs appear at Military.com, Aviation Week and Pen and Sword.
I have included the above to alert readers to expect a bit of fun and to highlight the fact that Huber has background in matters on which he writes and is not some fraudulent trickster mentally masturbating and trying to prevent honest debate.
On the matter of fun, there are some captioned photos on the left hand side of the page, the one about Bush and a hand gesture is quite relevant.
Now for some extracts:
In her June 3, 2008 speech to AIPAC, Condi began her verbal assault on Iran with the standard neoconservative misquote of a remark made by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then she launched into a fabulist speculation on Iran's nuclear intentions.
Now, we hear Iran’s rulers say that they do not seek a nuclear weapon, only peaceful nuclear energy. Well, then why have they rejected the past offers from the international community for incentives, even cooperation on light water reactors? Why has Iran rejected, thus far, Russia’s offer of uranium enrichment in Russia? Why, as the IAEA’s most recent report shows, is Iran continuing to enrich uranium, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions? Why, as the IAEA also suggests, are parts of Iran’s nuclear program under the control of the Iranian military? And why is Iran continuing to deny international experts full access to its nuclear facilities? Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s just hard to imagine that there are innocent answers to these questions. (Applause.)
It's even harder to imagine that we could have a Secretary of State who possesses the intellectual sophistication of a slow child, and yet we do. Ms. Rice seems wholly oblivious to the nature of the competition among today's political entities; the struggle for control of the kind of power it takes to run industries and to transport goods and to transform entire regions of the world.
The international maneuvering revolves around who will control how fast the last of the planet's oil gets used, and how much the rest of us have to pay for it, and who gets to direct the world's transition to alternate energy sources. Hence, the real political leverage Iran has to gain from its nuclear program will come from a viable energy industry, not nuclear weapons. Possessing nuclear weapons would amount to little more than painting a bull's eye on its back. Using one would be tantamount to self-genocide; the retaliation would be the virtual end of the Persian race.
The "past offers from the international community for incentives" regarding cooperation on light water reactors or uranium enrichment performed in another country all involve making Iran dependent on other nations—nations the U.S. can control—in order for its energy industry to function. That's like telling the Iranians they can have a farm as long as they grows their crops in Iowa and use John Deere tractors and American labor and let us keep the seeds for next year, and if they're good little sand tics we'll let them buy some of their own food from us.
And:
Condoleezza Rice, Ph.D. is part of a diplomacy machine that's designed not to work. Demanding Iran give up its uranium enrichment program as a precondition to direct diplomatic talks was a head fake. Cheney's neocons made Iran an offer it couldn't accept; that way they could say they tried diplomacy even though they really didn't.
The goal of the Bush regime's foreign policy is to promote conflict, not avoid it. The neoconservatives desire nothing more ardently than to create a second Cold War with our old adversaries Russia and China, whose client state Iran is assuming the role of Eastern Europe. Rounding out the lineup for round two, Venezuela is stepping in for Cuba and Iraq is substituting for West Germany.
The neo-communists won't engage us in an arms race this time around. They'll let us be the ones who pour national treasure down a sand dune on fantastic weapons that can't win the kinds of wars we fight until we're bankrupt. One commonly hears these days that we're playing checkers and the Russians and Chinese are playing chess. A more ironically apt analogy is that they have graduated to duplicate bridge while we continue to play war.
I'm sure some of the con jobs detailed in the article will be very familiar.
Now to a matter pertaining to Israel ... and as Australia and Canada have apologised to their indigenous people, Uri Avnery suggests Israel does as well, as a precondition to finding a peaceful resolution tho the conflict.
His suggested speech begins:
MADAM SPEAKER, Honorable Knesset,
On behalf of the State of Israel and all its citizens, I address today the sons and daughters of the Palestinian people, wherever they are.
We recognize the fact that we have committed against you a historic injustice, and we humbly ask your forgiveness.
When the Zionist movement decided to establish a national home in this country, which we call Eretz Yisrael and you call Filastin, it had no intention of building our state on the ruins of another people. Indeed, almost no one in the Zionist movement had ever been in the country before the first Zionist Congress in 1897, or even had any idea about the actual situation here.
The burning desire of the founding fathers of this movement was to save the Jews of Europe, where the dark clouds of hatred for the Jews were gathering. In Eastern Europe, pogroms were raging, and all over Europe there were signs of the process that would eventually lead to the terrible Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished.
This basic aim attached itself to the profound devotion of the Jews, throughout the generations, to the country in which the Bible, the defining text of our people, was written, and to the city of Jerusalem, towards which the Jews have turned for thousands of years in their prayers.
The Zionist founders who came to this country were pioneers who carried in their hearts the most lofty ideals. They believed in national liberation, freedom, justice and equality. We are proud of them. They certainly did not dream of committing an injustice of historic dimensions.
ALL THIS does not justify what happened afterwards. The creation of the Jewish national home in this country has involved a profound injustice to you, the people who lived here for generations.
We cannot ignore anymore the fact that in the war of 1948 - which is the War of Independence for us, and the Naqba for you - some 750 thousand Palestinians were compelled to leave their homes and lands. As for the precise circumstances of this tragedy I propose the establishment of a "Committee for Truth and Reconciliation"' composed of experts from your and from our side, whose conclusions will from then on be incorporated in the schoolbooks, yours and ours.
We cannot ignore anymore the fact that for 60 years of conflict and war, you have been prevented from realizing your natural right to independence in your own free national state, a right confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which also formed the legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel.
For all this, we owe you an apology, and I express it hereby with all my heart.
G'day Phil, crimninal enterprises ... mmm ... Jeremy Scahill interviewed about Blackwater.
JS: I was in Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO bombing that Bill Clinton prosecuted ... Halliburton and other war contractors, like Dyncorp, were very much present on the ground during the Yugoslavian civil war, primarily in Bosnia. And so that was really my first direct interaction with this sort of parallel army of contractors.
Then the [U.S. attack on] Iraqis in Falluja was very important to me as a reporter, because I had been there many times and had friends inside of Falluja. I remember watching on March 31, 2004, when those four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed inside Falluja, and my immediate response after seeing the way it was covered in the press -- that they were "civilians" [or] "civilian contractors" -- was "Oh my god, Bush is going to destroy that city."
I began my reporting on Blackwater [in April 2004] based on a very simple question: "How were the deaths of these not-active-duty U.S. soldiers -- not civilians, but four corporate personnel working for Blackwater, a mercenary company -- how do their deaths warrant the destruction of an entire city?"
I realized that it was a story that spoke volumes to what we were seeing happening in this country with the export of this incredibly violent foreign policy, the connections of political allies of the president to the war industry… [So I began] an in-depth investigation of Blackwater: Who runs the company? What are their connections to the Bush administration and the national security apparatus of the U.S., etc.?
Pepe Escobar - "Why Iraq won't be South Korea".
Flash back to September 2001. The neo-conservatives wanted their "new Pearl Harbor" really bad - something they had virtually implored for via the Project for a New American Century. They got it on September 11, 2001. Then the short anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan turned out to be a sort of test drive for Iraq. Echoing astute past observations by Hannah Arendt, US nationalism and imperialism was coupled with racism (towards Arabs and Islam).
And the invasion of Iraq was finally conceptualized as a "demonstration project" - the push to create in the Mesopotamian sands a US-style, wealthy consumer society, a demilitarized client state under benign US protection. Better yet, a 21st century version of the South Korean "tiger" miracle - engineered by US military-technological power.
But it all went way beyond Iraq as a new South Korea. David Harvey, the brilliant Oxford-educated American geographer who proposes, in his own words, long-term geopolitical analysis based on "historical-geographical materialism", wrote in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq offered "a vital strategic bridgehead ... on the Eurasian land mass that just happens to be the center of production of the oil that currently fuels (and will continue to fuel for at least the next 50 years) not only the global economy but also every large military machine that dares to oppose that of the United States."
An empire of military bases and control of oil fields. These two crucial "benchmarks", applied to Iraq, are what's left of that alliance between the neo-cons and the Christian Right which took over the US government with an imperial project of military rule over global oil resources. Now it's twilight time; and no wonder the Bush administration has come out with all guns blazing. Without a new, US Big Oil-friendly Iraqi oil law, and without a SOFA, US$3 trillion - according to Joseph Stiglitz's and Linda Bilmes' book - will have been spent for nothing.
Imagine how else all that money could have been spent. And think on why it wasn't.
Dave Lindorff on the killing of a journalist.
Others try to "manage" the news in other ways - such as coddling lying propagandists.
G'day Phil, two approaches on Iraq - Chris Floyd looks at the oil issue, featuring material by Juan Cole.
And "An Honorable Way Out of Iraq".
Of course, you've probably spotted the problem, the lead characters in the first article are not honourable people.
G'day Bob,
...while I'm reading your 'oily' links, perhaps you'd care to try one I found this morning in the SMH:
«The invasion of Iraq cost the world $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.»
and
«Salameh told a British parliamentary committee last month that Iraq had offered the US a deal, three years before the war, that would have opened 10 new giant oil fields on "generous" terms, in return for lifting sanctions. "This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price," he said. "But the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil."»
See it here.
But Phil, gotta make a profit while they can ...
G'day Phil, here is an article by Ramzy Baroud on the imagined Palestine.
As Palestinians hurriedly buried their loved ones in the Gaza Strip following a deadly Israeli onslaught, which further contributed to Gaza’s worst humanitarian crisis since 1967 [1], US and Israeli celebrities rallied at a Los Angeles benefit concert for the Israeli town of Sderot, located near the border of Gaza. [2] Hollywood movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, Valerie Harper and comedian Larry Miller mingled with Israeli celebrities such as singer Ninet Tayeb and others. Children from the Israeli town of Sderot, which received the lion’s share of homemade Palestinian rockets, were cheerful nonetheless. Song and dance, interrupted occasionally by solemn messages of support delivered via satellite by both Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates, replaced the cries of sirens the images of huddling families in the town’s shelters. It was a bittersweet moment, that of solidarity, a renewal of the vow made too often, that Israel’s plight is that of America, and Israel’s security is an American priority, and, indeed, ‘God loves those who love Israel’.
Welcome to America’s parallel reality on Israel and Palestine, barefaced in its defying of the notions of commonsense, equality and justice, ever-insistent on peeking at the Arab-Israeli conflict from a looking glass manufactured jointly in the church, in the Congress and in the news room, where the world is reduced to characters interacting in a Hollywood-like movie set: good guys, well groomed and often white-skinned vs. bad guys bearing opposite qualities.
One may become accustomed to watching, reading and listening to the chorus of support that America – its politicians, most of its mainstream media and a large conglomerate of its churches and clergies – tirelessly offer Israel. But one must never dismiss such support, as typical, expected or, as some of Israel’s supporters would put it, ‘special’ and ‘historic’. As simplistic and naïve in its articulation as the so-called pro-Israeli sentiment in the United States may be, in actuality, its intricate manifestation of political, religious, and cultural factors are as old, in some way, as the United States itself. To understand these factors, some deconstruction is in order. This article merely aims at shedding light at some of these factors and the history behind them.
Recommended.
G'day Phil, another "oily link" for you - Tom Engelhard: "No Blood for ... er ... um ...".
More than five years after the invasion of Iraq -- just in case you were still waiting -- the oil giants finally hit the front page…
Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." (Subhead: "Rare No-bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards.") And who were these four giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, the French company Total and BP (formerly British Petroleum). What these firms got were mere "service contracts" -- as in servicing Iraq's oil fields -- not the sort of "production sharing agreements" that President Bush's representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start. The Times reporter, Andrew E. Kramer, added this little detail: "[The contracts] include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today's prices: the [Iraqi oil] ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash." And here's the curious thing, exactly these four giants "lost their concessions in Iraq" back in 1972 when that country's oil was nationalized. Hmmm.
You'd think the Times might have slapped some kind of "we wuz wrong" label on the piece. I mean, remember when the mainstream media, the Times included, seconded the idea that Bush's invasion, whatever it was about -- weapons of mass destruction or terrorism or liberation or democracy or bad dictators or… well, no matter -- you could be sure of one thing: it wasn't about oil. "Oil" wasn't a word worth including in serious reporting on the invasion and its aftermath, not even after it turned out that American troops entering Baghdad guarded only the Oil and Interior Ministries, while the rest of the city was looted. Even then -- and ever after -- the idea that the Bush administration might have the slightest urge to control Iraqi oil (or the flow of Middle Eastern oil via a well-garrisoned Iraq) wasn't worth spending a few paragraphs of valuable newsprint on.
shock, horror! It isn't *only* oil ...
.. there's gas involved, too
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
and thanks for your oily Engelhard link.
Perhaps you might enjoy this one, Don Bacon/Operation Enduring Pipeline.
'Naturally' enough, it mentions Afghanistan, and other even less salubrious provinces (of Empire, even if only wistfully 'to be.')
I'm supposing many truth-seekers will recall the (alleged!) US threat to the Taliban: "We will either carpet you in gold or carpet you in bombs!"
Here's what seems to be the 'original' quote:
«Until [then], says the book, "the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that".
But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one", the authors claim.
"At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'," Brisard said in an interview in Paris.»
[commondreams/ips/Julio Godoy,15Nov'01]
I leave it as an exercise for the reader, to make what they will of these two 'snapshots' of possible truth.
G'day Phil, Tom Engelhardt provides a somewhat more detailed assessment of the situation in Iraq than that provided in an article linked elsewhere by a known sufferer of Hitchens' Disease. Let's face it, citing an article which includes "The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq." is an obvious sign that the disease has taken a firm hold. And to have the front to criticise the scholarship of others, well ....
G'day Phil, there was a recent incident involving a relative of the Iraqi pm ... Chris Floyd on whether the US is making Maliki an offer he cannot refuse.
G'day Phil, let's review the lies to war ...
A matter of inconsistency - some deserve sanction, some support.
Now, for a quiz ... What problems are there with the following statements?:
President George W. Bush on Tuesday urged the international community not to allow some countries to undermine the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as it marked its 40th anniversary.
"NPT parties must take strong action to confront noncompliance with the treaty in order to preserve and strengthen its nonproliferation undertakings," Bush said in a statement as the world weighs potential North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats.
Bush did not mention those countries by name but said "we cannot allow nations to violate their commitments and undermine the NPT's fundamental role in advancing international security."
Some won't see any problems, some will pretend not to. Both those are a worry.
G'day Phil, some twists and turns and games afoot ... beginning with Tomdispatch - Nick Turse on oily manoeuvering ....
And remember those two British SAS troopers captured in civvies with a arms and explosives? Well, what was going on? Part of the old divide and conquer?
Has Maliki had enough?
The long-running showdown over the proposed US-Iraq treaty, aimed at legitimizing the American occupation of Iraq, is coming to a head, and it doesn't look good for the United States.
Prime Minister Nouiri al-Maliki tossed a bombshell today. In a news conference about the still-secret US-Iraqi talks, which began in March, Maliki for the first time said that the chances of securing the pact are just about nil, and instead he said Iraq will seek a limited, ad hoc renewal of the US authority to remain in Iraq, rather than a broad-based accord.
More important, Maliki and his top security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie added that Iraq intends to link even a limited accord to a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces. Reports the Sydney Morning Herald:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.
It was the first time the US-backed Shi'ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would benefit militant groups.
More likely a disruption of US plans. They won't like that. Now what will they do?
G'day Phil, a reminder of a place some people cite as not being mentioned, as in "What about ....?", but when you provide information such as this about Somalia the likely response from some is "anti-American ...". Some people are hard to please - but when they are operating out of ignorance and prejudice, then nothing rosy-coloured views are acceptable.
The on-going, American-backed atrocity continues to rage in Somalia, where George W. Bush has launched a third "regime change" front in his global Terror War, with the help of one of his many pet dictators, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
This week the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, Osman Ali Ahmed, was shot dead as he left evening prayers at a mosque near his home in Mogadishu. The Bush Administration immediately blamed insurgent factions fighting against the Ethiopian-imposed government; insurgent leaders immediately denied the charge: "All the Mujahedeen are not behind his killing and it is not becoming of them to kill important persons who help the Somali people on whose behalf we are fighting," said a spokesman for one of the Islamist factions opposed to the Ethiopian-imposed government. Whoever carried out the killing was obviously trying to foment more chaos in the shattered land and derail the fraught and fragile peace process, which has as one of its ultimate goals the withdrawal of Bush's Ethiopian proxy army.
The brutal conflict in Somalia – which has seen the U.S. bombing of fleeing civilians, "renditions" of innocent refugees to Ethiopia's torture dens, the usual "collateral damage" from botched "targeted assassinations" by American forces and the cheerfully admitted use of American death squads to "mop up" after covert ops – has been almost entirely ignored by the U.S. media and political establishments. [For copious links to these and other aspects of the U.S. involvement in Somalia, see Willing Executioners: America's Bipartisan Atrocity Deepens in Somalia.] It has not figured in the U.S. presidential contest at all; neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is in the least bit troubled by this killing spree on the imperial frontier.
Not very rosy. Anyone have objections? Make a case. Otherwise ...
G'day Phil, continuing on the subject of denial of US crimes, Obama is subject to it ... and in matters aggressive, promises more of the same.
Some brighter news fromJustin Raimondo on Iraqi wishes for Yank departure. And then there is this snippet (cross reference to another thread):
However, some modicum of reality seems to have broken through the solid wall of self-sustaining ignorance that surrounds the Washington crowd with the news that U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen has "sent Israel an unequivocal message stating that Israel does not have a 'green light' from the U.S. to attack Iranian nuclear facilities" and that it will not get U.S. support if it chooses to go ahead anyway.
This is clearly an indication that the revolt of the generals – who are horrified by the prospect of another war in the Middle East – is undergoing a "surge" as fresh war clouds darken the horizon. Whether that is going to be enough to tamp down the war cries of the uber-hawks in the Pentagon and their allies in the chattering classes – and the White House – is doubtful, at best, but, on that score, I'll take what I can get…
The problem with having to rely on the military to prevent further war is that they can be replaced ... and, of course, that has been done .. but at least there is some sanity evident.
G'day Phil, like sands through the ... oh, well lots of sand ... and oil ... but things aren't working out. Chris Floyd highlights a piece by William Pfaff.
There are basically three main rationales for keeping the imperial adventure in Mesopotamia going in one form or another. First, that it is a fight against terrorism, a battle to uphold the values of civilization against the evil Islamofascist hordes. (This is the argument always offered for public consumption, and it may well be that a few of its champions actually believe it.) Second, that the United States must dominate this all-important oil region as a matter of vital national interest, regardless of the "legality" or "morality" of the project. (This is the "savvy" insider view, the realpolitik of the Cheney Faction and "gritty realist" commentators.) Third, that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq until the country is stable enough to ensure an "orderly" withdrawal. (This is Barack Obama's public stance -- one which, as we noted the other day, virtually guarantees many more years of occupation. Not to mention Obama's plan to leave behind a "residual" force -- of up to 80,000 troops -- even after his "orderly" withdrawal.)
Pfaff upends each of these arguments -- counterterrorism, realpolitik and caution -- and calls instead for the only course that has ever made sense, once this criminal action had been launched: immediate withdrawal, orderly or not.
Gareth Poter - "Bush outfoxed in the Iraqi sands."
The oil racket.
And while they are exporting democracy ... Chris Floyd on the gutting of the Fourth Amendment. Links to Glenn Greenwald who has a series on the FISA issue.
G'day Phil, a quote:
"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799
More on breaking the chains - Chris Hedges.
If the sweeping surveillance law signed by President Bush on Thursday -- giving the U.S. government nearly unchecked authority to eavesdrop on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans -- is allowed to stand, we will have eroded one of the most important bulwarks to a free press and an open society.
The new FISA Amendments Act nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance. It allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The court will not be told specifics about who will be wiretapped, which means the law provides woefully inadequate safeguards to protect innocent people whose communications are caught up in the government's dragnet surveillance program.
The law, passed under the guise of national security, ostensibly targets people outside the country. There is no question, however, that it will ensnare many communications between Americans and those overseas. Those communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments.
This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours. It will hang like the sword of Damocles over all who dare to defy the official versions of events. It leaves open the possibility of retribution and invites the potential for abuse by those whose concern is not with national security but with the consolidation of their own power.
Glenn Greenwald.
The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, one of the country's handful of truly excellent investigative journalists over the last seven years, has written a new book -- "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals" -- which reveals several extraordinary (though unsurprising) facts regarding America's torture regime. According to the New York Times and Washington Post, both of which received an advanced copy, Mayer's book reports the following:
* "Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes."
* "A CIA analyst warned the Bush administration in 2002 that up to a third of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake, but White House officials ignored the finding and insisted that all were 'enemy combatants' subject to indefinite incarceration."
* "[A] top aide to Vice President Cheney shrugged off the report and squashed proposals for a quick review of the detainees' cases . . .
'There will be no review,' the book quotes Cheney staff director David Addington as saying. 'The president has determined that they are ALL enemy combatants. We are not going to revisit it.'"
* "[T]he [CIA] analyst estimated that a full third of the camp's detainees were there by mistake. When told of those findings, the top military commander at Guantanamo at the time, Major Gen. Michael Dunlavey, not only agreed with the assessment but suggested that an even higher percentage of detentions -- up to half -- were in error. Later, an academic study by Seton Hall University Law School concluded that 55 percent of detainees had never engaged in hostile acts against the United States, and only 8 percent had any association with al-Qaeda."
* [T]he International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were 'categorically' torture, which is illegal under both American and international law".
* "[T]he Red Cross document 'warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.'"
This is what a country becomes when it decides that it will not live under the rule of law, when it communicates to its political leaders that they are free to do whatever they want -- including breaking our laws -- and there will be no consequences. There are two choices and only two choices for every country -- live under the rule of law or live under the rule of men. We've collectively decided that our most powerful political leaders are not bound by our laws -- that when they break the law, there will be no consequences. We've thus become a country which lives under the proverbial "rule of men" -- that is literally true, with no hyperbole needed -- and Mayer's revelations are nothing more than the inevitable by-product of that choice.
That's why this ongoing, well-intentioned debate that Andrew Sullivan is having with himself and his readers over whether "torture is worse than illegal, warrantless eavesdropping" is so misplaced, and it's also why those who are dismissing as "an overblown distraction" the anger generated by last week's Congressional protection of surveillance lawbreakers are so deeply misguided. Things like "torture" and "illegal eavesdropping" can't be compared as though they're separate, competing policies. They are rooted in the same framework of lawlessness. The same rationale that justifies one is what justifies the other. Endorsing one is to endorse all of it.
Another quote:
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." -- John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.) as quoted in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, NY, 1953, p167 and also in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Boston, 1968, p479
And:
"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837
Note that Jackson did not say "eternal surveillance".
But coin an expression such as "the war on terror" and keep spinning and fear-mongering and attention is diverted until one day the freedom's enshrined in the Constitution are a distant memory, or a dream. And how quickly the process is adopted elsewhere.
failed noblesse oblige ...
.. in 'them vs. us' (élites vs. we the sheople®) ...
.. Q: How's it going? A: From bad to worse - seems to me.
-=*=-
We have been lied to, and effectively deceived.
I'm not 'just' talking about Howard, and "All politicians lie!" - although that was quite bad enough, thank you, when he called us anti-wars 'a mob' then ignored us, as he proceeded to embroil us premeditatedly, on already then known totally false pretences in the US' illegal and genocidal invasion of Iraq.
No, the lying and deceiving goes much deeper, right to the very heart of our existence. They told us we had a democracy; that there was a social contract whereby we gave them the power to 'lead' us, and they agreed to do so responsibly.
And the deceiving didn't start or end with Howard, it both pre-dated him, and has continued since. See this:
«Iranian missile tests this week further stoked tension and rattled financial markets.»
The inference via the AusBC is that high petrol prices are somehow due to Iran, when the actual situation is that the US and Israel have been making extremely vile threats towards Iran, causing Iran a) incredible angst and b) to move towards defending itself. Not just BTW, it is illegal to make such threats - and there is 'the rub.' Not just the US, not just Israel, but the UK and Australia too - are acting illegally (collectively and/or individually) towards Iran, Iraq & Afghanistan, and any country unlucky enough to border on or otherwise be within reach of Israeli aggression. There is no excuse at all, let alone no legal excuse for invading or threatening to attack sovereign countries. What is going on is murder for spoil, and you'd really have to wonder Q: Why the rest of the world tolerates this. A: largely because of US threats, i.e. coercion. Q: What sort'a threats? A: Oh, 'only' possible nukular annihilation, say.
-=*=-
The items Bob (G'day!) has just cited have to do with internal US finagling, ranging from torture to spying, and again not 'just' deployed against terror-suspects, but also against the US population at large. The US is 'leading' the world on such abuses, but Aus is partly following suit, as Howard showed vis-à-vis Afghanistan then Iraq, and Rudd continues to show vis-à-vis Afghanistan.
But again, that's not all, as the quote from the AusBC shows. In a nutshell, they - as a publicly financed adjunct to the (venal!) corporate MSM set out - and we must conclude deliberately - to propagandise us, i.e. lie to us.
Notice that the worst abuses come from the so-called conservative side, Repugs over there, Libs over here, but are not limited to that side, see Clinton, Blair, and now Rudd. Bob quotes Jackson: «that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty,» and that refers to the sheople's vigilance (wake up!)
Which they - or anyone - can't manage if a) they're lied to, and b) (worse!) - nobody listens.
Fazit: Without corrective action, the world is headed over the greedastrophe precipice. We desperately need a countervailing power to effectively oppose the current widespread abuses of power. For society to work 'as designed, as desired,' all threads must pull in the same direction. Better get weaving, eh? That means a) the MSM must stop their filthy lying, b) our representatives must commit to properly representing us and c) the sheople must wake up - and pay proper attention!
-=*end*=-
PS To investigate how the sheople are effectively deceived, one could start with a video "The Century of the Self" found here at ICH, a commentary from medialens 1st, 2nd and 3rd; here at informationliberation or here at wiki, the latter referring to an article at the guardian.
Then, if one wished to see some deception methods deployed by politicians, try The Political Mind by George Lakoff at NS.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] noblesse oblige n. privilege entails responsibility. [French] [POD]
G'day Phil, an article by Frank Rich on Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side". Some people are getting jittery:
So hot is the speculation that war-crimes trials will eventually follow in foreign or international courts that Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, has publicly advised Mr. Feith, Mr. Addington and Alberto Gonzales, among others, to “never travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel.” But while we wait for the wheels of justice to grind slowly, there are immediate fears to tend. Ms. Mayer’s book helps cement the case that America’s use of torture has betrayed not just American values but our national security, right to the present day.
But why did they do it?:
In her telling, a major incentive for Mr. Cheney’s descent into the dark side was to cover up for the Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002, told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all preventable.” By March 2000, according to the C.I.A.’s inspector general, “50 or 60 individuals” in the agency knew that two Al Qaeda suspects — soon to be hijackers — were in America. But there was no urgency at the top. Thomas Pickard, the acting F.B.I. director in the summer of 2001, told Ms. Mayer that when he expressed his fears about the Qaeda threat to Mr. Ashcroft, the attorney general snapped, “I don’t want to hear about that anymore!”
After 9/11, our government emphasized “interrogation over due process,” Ms. Mayer writes, “to pre-empt future attacks before they materialized.” But in reality torture may well be enabling future attacks. This is not just because Abu Ghraib snapshots have been used as recruitment tools by jihadists. No less destructive are the false confessions inevitably elicited from tortured detainees. The avalanche of misinformation since 9/11 has compromised prosecutions, allowed other culprits to escape and sent the American military on wild-goose chases. The coerced “confession” to the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to take one horrific example, may have been invented to protect the real murderer.
The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq. Exhibit A, revisited in “The Dark Side,” is Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an accused Qaeda commander whose torture was outsourced by the C.I.A. to Egypt. His fabricated tales of Saddam’s biological and chemical W.M.D. — and of nonexistent links between Iraq and Al Qaeda — were cited by President Bush in his fateful Oct. 7, 2002, Cincinnati speech ginning up the war and by Mr. Powell in his subsequent United Nations presentation on Iraqi weaponry. Two F.B.I. officials told Ms. Mayer that Mr. al-Libi later explained his lies by saying: “They were killing me. I had to tell them something.”
Interesting times.
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